


Second Chance

by MiaMoonWolf



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Amnesia, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Confusion, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fate & Destiny, Happy Ending, Humor, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Mystery, Parallel Universes, Pseudoscience, Supernatural Elements, Superpowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-06-03 23:13:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6631069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiaMoonWolf/pseuds/MiaMoonWolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last thing that Kise remembers is being struck by lightning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story draws heavily on the CW's "The Flash," as well as "Arrow" and DC Comics original superheroes. Etc. Also I can't science so just throwing that out there ;P  
> And you should go watch those shows if you haven't yet because they are phenomenal.

The last thing that Kise remembers is being struck by lightning; the feeling of exhilaration; the current running through him. And then the blinding pain and then nothing. But that didn’t explain the blank white room that he was in, nor the man in the suit sitting behind the desk typing. He looked vaguely familiar, something in those red eyes…

“Excuse me,” Kise said smiling.

The man with the red eyes looked up, but didn’t stop his work.

“Ryouta, what can I do for you?”

“Uh,” that was a confusing question. “Well where am I?”

“That question is irrelevant. The real question is where are you going.”

“What?”

“Well the way I see it you have two choices. Either you stay with us, or you go back.”

Kise was just about to open his mouth when the redhead cut across him again.

“I should warn you, if you go back it won’t be the same.”

Kise took a moment to consider this. “‘If I go back.’ You mean, you mean after what happened.”

“Yes.”

“And if I stay then….”

“Then you die and become one of us."


	2. the beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kise wakes up.

Kise woke up to a light beeping sound. His eyes felt heavy as he tried to open them.  
“Oh my God. Thank you thank you. Ryouta you’re ok. Nurse!”  
He hadn’t realized that someone was holding his hand until their fingers left his. He tried to look around. He was definitely in a hospital, and everything was white and smelled sterile.  
A few minutes later a nurse came in closely followed by Midorima in a doctor’s coat. Kise barely had time to register this when they started checking tubes and monitors, poking and prodding, and not letting anyone in to see him. And all throughout it Midorima didn’t seem at all concerned with Kise as anything more than a patient. What was happening?  
“Now what’s your name?”  
“Kise Ryouta,” he said automatically.  
“And your birthday?”  
“June 18th.”  
“Blood type?” Midorima said as he made notes on his clipboard.  
“… I… I can’t remember.”  
Midorima gave him a hard look before nodding once.  
“That’s in order, Mr. Kagami said that you never remembered it. Maybe this time around you will,” he said smiling pleasantly. Kise just nodded. Why had they asked Kagami?  
“Alright what’s the date?”  
“Um, April 18th?”  
“And the year?”  
“2010.”  
Midorima flicked his eyes up at him. He then turned around, but not before Kise could see the small frown on his face.  
“Kise, do you remember what happened?”  
“I don’t know… just I remember seeing lightning, feeling like a current went through my body, and then… then I woke up here,” somehow he got the feeling that he shouldn’t mention his wacko stint in purgatory.  
Midorima still looked perplexed.  
“Frankly Kise this is puzzling. When you came in you were scarred and in really bad shape, barely hanging on, but all of your injuries have healed.” He frowned at Kise for another long moment before looking down at his clipboard again. “All of your answers were correct, but the year. Kise it’s 2016. And you were hurt two days ago.”  
Kise felt his heart stutter. 2016? He’d lost six years of his life?  
“Do you remember anything of the last six years?”  
“I-” he shut his mouth. The last memorable thing that had happened in his life was getting his ass handed to him in the Winter Cup. “No,” he said decisively.  
Midorima looked down at his clipboard and then, seeming to make up his mind, “I’ll need to see you for regular check-ups, but your memories may never come back.” Blunt as ever Kise thought. “In the next few days you should remember the basics though. Where you live, your lifestyle, etc. As for your other memories it’s likely that they’ll come back within the month. There’s an online support group for people like you and if you need any help you can always come in alright?”  
“Thank you Midorimac- Mr. Midorima.”  
Midorima gave him another strange look, before nodding once and leading him out.  
“Mr. Kagami should’ve filled out your paperwork by now.”  
They made it out to the lobby where Kagami was pacing around looking nervous. His smile when he saw Kise was so happy and relieved that it was disconcerting. Kagami knew enough to fill out Kise’s paperwork. What was going on? He’d never told Kagami those things. Hell half of those things he didn’t even know off the top of his head… it won’t be the same.  
“Alright Mr. Kagami, I just want to let you know that if you two need anything you should feel free to call in or stop by. Also… Kise is it alright if I tell him?”  
Kise stopped mid-thought and nodded half knowing what he was agreeing to. Midorima asked him to wait a little ways away. As he walked away he could just make out what Midorima said:  
“Kise seems to have some slight memory loss. I believe that his memories will start coming back to him over the next couple of weeks…” and then Kise was out of earshot with a nurse helping him into a chair. He looked over to where Kagami was looking very focused as he nodded along to Midorima.  
Finally they pulled Kise back over.  
“Thanks so much Dr. Midorima. Really, you saved him, I can’t thank you enough. You ready Kise?”  
Kise nodded even though he secretly thought that he’d never be ready for this.  
They made it out to a fancy car that Kise’d never seen before and Kagami opened the door for him.  
They sat in silence for the first little while.  
“I’m so glad that you’re ok Ryouta, I was so worried, we all were.”  
Kise is exhausted, but he knows that he needs to focus. He needs to figure out what isn’t adding up. Thank God he’s always been observant and slightly crafty.  
“Where is everyone else?”  
“Kasamatsu had to go in for work, but I messaged him as soon as you woke up. He and Sakurai should be stopping by tomorrow sometime.” Kasamatsu and Sakurai?  
“They’re coming together?”  
Kagami gave him a worried look, but then seemed to be trying to school his expression. Kise burst out laughing.  
“I asked a question that I should know the answer to didn’t I?”  
Kagami seemed to relax, and a small smile crept onto his face.  
“The doctor said that you might not remember everything yet. But yeah they’re married. We went to their wedding.”  
“They’re what? Kasamatsucchi and that frickin mushroom?”  
“Kasamatsucchi? That’s a new one. Although yeah Sakurai’s always been a mushroom. Damn you played against him in high school right? I don’t know how he survived the Touou team. Especially with that Aho on his team. That guy’s a menace.”  
Kise didn’t say anything. He didn’t call Kasamatsu ‘Kasamatsucchi’ here.  
“Ryouta?”  
“Kagami,” he had to keep himself from adding the ‘cchi.’ “What do I call Kasamatsu?”  
Kagami stopped the car. Kise looked up.  
“Let’s go inside first.”  
Where was he…. No it was ok it had been six years. Of course he’d live somewhere different.  
“I don’t live with my parents anymore huh?” Kise said lightly. Kagami didn’t say anything. Kise looked over.  
Kagami was gripping the steering wheel looking straight ahead, and Kise didn’t miss the sharp intake of breath that Kagami was now holding.  
Kise bit his lip about to ask another question when a valet came and opened his door for him.  
“Welcome back, Mr. Kise. It’s so nice to see that you’re ok.”  
“Thank you,” Kise said politely as he gave a small smile. This man knew him. Hell he probably opened Kise’s car door for him all the time.  
They crossed into a swanky apartment building and entered the lift.  
Kagami took out a key and put it into the elevator allowing him to push the buttons.  
Kise didn’t even let himself think about why Kagami had a key.  
“Alright, home sweet home,” he said as the lift doors opened on the top floor into a penthouse apartment.  
Kise could see the whole city out of an impressive wall made of glass. It was amazing.  
He looked over to the open dining room and kitchen in the front. The dining room table... it was the same one that Kagami had had in high school. Kise was starting to have a hunch. He walked into the living room, which was off of the dining room. He saw a basketball magazine on the table. He picked it up instinctively. He could feel Kagami hovering somewhere behind him out of sight. Kagami was on the cover along with Aomine. He quickly looked at the jersey’s. Ok different teams, but both really good teams. So professional. He flipped through and didn’t see any of the other GoM’s there. He put it down and turned to the real question that he needed answered. He walked into the long hall where there were three doors and he opened the first one as if he knew exactly what was behind it. It was a bathroom. He felt his pulse quicken. He went in and peed just to make it look like maybe he’d remembered that it was there. When he came back out Kagami was waiting in the hallway looking tense. Kise smiled at him.  
“So…” he had been about to ask ‘which room is mine.’ When Kagami walked past him and opened the door at the very end of the hall.  
“You probably want to take a shower huh.”  
Kise nodded. Uh sure he did. He followed Kagami into the room where Kagami opened a drawer and pulled out what must be Kise’s pajamas. Kise took them. And that’s when he saw the photo on top of the dresser. Kagami was standing behind Kise with his head resting over Kise’s shoulder, his arms wrapped around Kise’s waist, his lips pressing into Kise’s cheek. And there was Kise smiling and looking off to the side as if Kagami had just surprised him. Except Kise looked older and- and- oh shit. Kagami and he weren’t roommates. No of course not. Why would a professional basketball player need to split rent? They were dating. This was their apartment. Their room.  
Kise turned to see Kagami staring at him and all of a sudden he remembered the unanswered questions from the car.  
“Kagami, I need you to tell me.” He didn’t need all the answers. But he’d already asked two questions and not gotten a response. “I don’t call Kasamatsu ‘Kasamatsucchi’ do I?”  
Kagami shook his head. Kise nodded. He couldn’t explain why it made him sad. It was just that he’d always added the –cchi. So was this even his world anymore? Was he even himself? Or had some other Kise been walking and talking and breathing and loving- Another Kise who he’d just stolen this life from?  
“And my parents. My sisters?”  
Kagami looked pained. And that’s when Kise felt his legs give out. Kagami was there in a flash to catch him and take him to the bed.  
“Where are they? They should’ve been at the hospital, Kagami… Kagami why weren’t they there? Why weren’t my sisters there?” He turned to Kagami who was hovering close by half sitting half standing next to him. He could feel the tears welling up in his eyes as he searched between Kagami’s eyes. Kagami did a valiant effort of not looking away.  
“Ryouta I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”  
Kise was crying and shaking and Kagami was right there. Arms wrapping around him. And why did this not feel new to him? His family was dead, he could tell by the way Kagami had looked at him. But it didn’t seem like entirely new information. And he was apparently dating Kagami. And one of his best friends had gotten married and he didn’t even remember the wedding. Hell he’d just met another one of his best friends and the man hadn’t even recognized him. All of a sudden it was all too much. Too much to bear.  
“Shh I’ve got you. Ryouta I have you.”


	3. Week One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some very awkward encounters and some amusing revelations.

Kise didn’t remember falling asleep. All he knew was that when he woke up he felt ten years older. He didn’t want to open his eyes. He kept them closed and tried to remember everything about his life up until the day before. His mothers smile, his father’s laugh, his sister’s obnoxious teasing. Part of him had hoped that the last 24 hours had just been some horrid nightmare. But the pain in his chest suggested otherwise.  
He didn’t know how to feel. He felt dead. Had he even actually made a choice in that white room? He knew that he should think more about the significance of that experience, but right now all he could do was deal with what was apparently his life.  
He rolled over and right into something hard.  
“Hmmmph,” he groaned. Solid like a rock.  
Kise felt something feather-light sweep through his hair. He blinked his eyes open to stare at Kagami, who was closer than he’d ever been in his life and looking at Kise like he was something precious.  
“Kagami.”  
“Want me to make you some coffee?”  
Kise nodded. At least he was allowed to like coffee. Kagami started to get up, but Kise grabbed his arm.  
“Um… can I come with you?”  
Kagami laughed a little before nodding. Kise got up and followed him to the kitchen. Kagami started making coffee while Kise looked around blearily. He saw a few photos over the mantelpiece. He saw one of him at Kaijo and smiled. He remembered taking this photo. He stared at it recalling every last detail. Kasamatsu yelling at them. Hayakawa getting overly excited. The way they had all been celebrating the end of the tournament even though they’d lost. He looked at the next photo. Kagami was with a group of foreigners wearing basketball uniforms. They looked to be the same age as Kise was in the Kaijo photo. Maybe… maybe Kagami had gone to school in America. He was glad to see though that both Alex and Himuro were in the photo but this seemed like confirmation of what he had feared. The first 16 years of his life weren’t the same as what he remembered. He put the photo down and moved on to the next one. There were his parents. And a photo of Kagami with his parents. And then he saw the last photo on the mantelpiece. Kagami and Kise were wearing tuxes, on the bottom there was a shiny silver script Yukio & Ryou 3/4/15. Kasamatsu’s wedding. Kise and Kagami must’ve already been dating.  
“Kagamicchi,” Kise said pulling the photo off of the shelf. When he turned around he saw Kagami looking at him. Had he been watching Kise the whole time? Kise stopped to think. Oh no… he’d just called him Kagamicchi. More than that if they were dating then he probably didn’t even call him Kagami. Kagami saw the photo in his hands and gave Kise a soft smile.  
“I guess you don’t remember that.”  
Kise shook his head. Kagami looked sad. And Kise felt so guilty even though it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t mean to not know all of these things. “I…”  
“No, Kise it’s alright,” Kagami said as he stepped over to Kise. He took the photo from him and stared at it. “Do you want me to tell you what happened?” he said smiling.  
Kise nodded. Kagami grabbed the coffee pot and brought it over to the table. He handed Kise a mug with a kitten wearing glasses on it.  
“Kasamatsu’s such a prat, he had to go and make it a destination wedding. So here we were, jetlagged as all hell in Hawaii. And you Kasamatsu’s best man. We’d spent all week running around going to ridiculous events. Sakurai made us make self-portraits out of seashells and rocks, honestly it was horrible.” But Kise saw the fond look on Kagami’s face as he looked at the photo. “And then finally it was the day of the wedding. We were so fucking hot in those suits, but then Kasamatsu made Sakurai throw a bundle of mushrooms as the ‘bouquet’ and you caught it.” Kise couldn’t help, but laugh. He wished that he could remember. Or that he had actually been there.  
“It sounds like a really good week.”  
“It was,” Kagami said looking at Kise fervently. They sat in silence for a minute. Kise wasn’t sure if he should ask.  
“How long?” he said quietly.  
Kagami was looking down at his hands.  
“Two years, ten months, 5 days.”  
Holy shit. Kise didn’t know what to say and Kagami seemed to be thinking.  
“Kise,” he said giving Kise such a piercing look that Kise felt naked. “I want you to know that it’s ok. It’s ok that you don’t remember. Even if you never remember. I promised you that I’d be here with you, and I intend to make good on that promise no matter what.” His hand slid across the table and held Kise’s. Kise recognized those fingers from the hospital when he woke up.  
“Thank you,” Kise said, because really there was nothing else that he could say; nothing that would convey how relieved he felt when he heard those words.  
Kagami nodded before pulling his hand back and picking up his coffee mug.  
“I think that maybe we should hold off on some of the questions. Just for a little while.”  
Kise nodded, because yeah he needed to process some stuff first.  
“How about you shower and I cook breakfast.”  
“Oh, yeah. I probably smell like a dying animal.”  
Kagami laughed but it was forced. Ugh Kise was an idiot he’d been in a coma, he should not be making ‘Kise dies’ jokes.  
“Sorry.”  
“No, no, it’s fine. It’s actually a relief that you have a sense of humor after everything. Your towel’s the yellow one,” he added.  
“Thanks.”  
Before Kise showered he stared at himself in the mirror for a long time. It was really weird to see yourself aged six years. Finally he decided that he should actually shower. When he came out of the bathroom it was to the smell of the most glorious breakfast that he’d ever seen. He groaned in anticipation. “MMMM yes, this looks divine.”  
Kagami served them and they passed several happy minutes with Kise telling Kagami how amazing his cooking was.  
Kagami’s phone rang and he quickly excused himself to grab it. But he didn’t leave the table.  
“Hello?... Yeah he’s out of the hospital… you have no idea, I’m so relieved… well, he’s lost some of his memories…” Kagami looked at Kise and mouthed a quick apology. Kise waved him off. It was probably better that people knew before he started freaking everyone out with his –cchi’s and whatever else he’d fuck up. “Yeah… no thanks for understanding… yeah I’ll be back in on Friday… let me talk to Ryouta about it… thanks, bye.”  
“Your coach?”  
“Just wanted to make sure that you were ok.”  
“You have to go back to practice on Friday?”  
Kagami groaned. “Yeah, I-,” he sighed, “yeah.”  
Kise nodded. “Well I really want to google myself but I think I should wait. I know that my…” he breathed deeply, “that my family didn’t just die, and even though I feel like I know, it still feels strangely new so… I just want to…”  
“Take it easy,” Kagami supplied. Kise looked up nodding. “You want to watch some tv?”  
“God, yes.”  
“Uh… damn this is so weird. So you really like this TV show called um ‘Gossip Girl?’ mind you it’s complete rubbish, total shite, but… maybe you want to just start it from the beginning? Who knows your love for Blair might help with the amnesia thing.” Kagami stood there awkwardly scratching his neck.  
“You know the characters names?” Kise said, eyes narrowed.  
“You make me watch it with you so that I can explain some of the weird English jokes.”  
“It’s in English…”  
“Oh. Huh? Should we try it? There aren’t subtitles though.”  
***  
Kagami put the dvd in for Kise and watched in apprehension as Kise stared at the opening scene.  
His face looked totally dumbstruck. Fuck. He couldn’t speak English anymore. Oh, fuck he wouldn’t be able to talk with Kagami’s parents until the amnesia wore off. And he’d been practically fluent and- Kise was grinning at him.  
“I know what they’re saying. I speak English,” he laughed in surprise. “I bet this is how superheroes feel. Yesterday I could only read basic English and now I can understand all this rapid-fire language. Oh my god this is like a movie.” Kise was getting into one of those rapturous fantasies that he often indulged in. Usually Kagami would just roll his eyes and walk away, because he didn’t want Kise to know that he thought it was endearing. But damn Kise had just gotten out of a coma, he was totally going to let himself be endeared. Kise was still going on about what type of superhero he’d be. Actually he and Kagami had this conversation a lot. Kise was always changing his answer, coming up with something new, whereas Kagami stuck by the good ol’ speed standby. He just wanted to kick that Ahomine’s ass after all.  
Finally Kise stopped talking. His eyes growing big when he looked at Kagami. Shit he’d been staring, totally enjoying just watching his boyfriend be happy again. Kise quickly turned towards the TV and Kagami could see a slight tinge of pink on his cheeks. Oh man Kagami must’ve freaked him out with whatever face he was making. Now that he thought about it, how much of their relationship did Kise even remember?  
After three episodes Kagami asked if he’d be ok if Kagami went to the gym for a while. Kise had smiled and told him to get his workout on and so here Kagami was in the apartments gym. He was running on the treadmill, but mostly he was focused on thinking.  
“Kise seems to have some slight memory loss. I believe that his memories will start coming back to him over the next couple of weeks.” Midorima had looked up, watching the progress of Kise as he walked away, he must’ve deemed that Kise was far enough away because all of a sudden his tone turned brisk. “Truthfully I’m not sure how much he remembers at all. He might remember everything about one of his acquaintances and then not know which toothbrush is his.” And then he’d given Kagami a stern look like he was reprimanding a child. “Mr. Kagami, Kise might not act like you’re used to, that will go away though. It’s best if you let his memories come back to him on their own, but for really important life events like weddings or funerals he’ll probably be confused and you have to tell him honestly what happened, even if it’s hard. This is going to be extremely difficult for Kise. And he’ll probably feel guilty about not remembering every facet of your life together. It might be a good idea to take him to places that are important to him. It might help him remember. Other sensory details might help too.” Kagami had just stood there and listened. He was going to help Ryouta no matter what. No matter how hard it was.  
Now Kagami was trying to figure out exactly what Kise did and didn’t know. Honestly what freaked him out the most was that Kise didn’t even seem to recognize their apartment. Not only that, but he wasn’t calling people by the names that he usually did. Although that sounded like the sort of thing that the doctor had meant by ‘act differently.’ He thought about it some more and really it didn’t matter if he called Kasamatsu ‘Kasamatsucchi.’ Kagami snorted, it was actually kind of hilarious. But then he sobered up. Adding –cchi was cute, but it didn’t entirely veil the pain that Kagami felt. Because if he was being completely honest with himself, it hurt that Kise didn’t call him by his name anymore.  
“Dr. Midorima, were you able to figure out what happened?”  
“No. He seems to be under the impression that he was struck by lightning, but there was no lightning during the day in question; that being said he was extremely injured and then without any help on our part, completely healed all by himself. He should’ve woken up right away, but he didn’t. I don’t know for sure, but I think that he may have faced some kind of trauma. Please be very careful. If bad memories start to resurface contact us IMMEDIATELY.”  
Maybe it was the trauma that caused Kise to act differently. Kagami was so angry that Kise was hurt and confused. I mean shit he didn’t remember that his parents and sisters had died. He’d have to go through all sorts of things all over again.  
Kagami spent the rest of his workout trying to steel himself for the storm ahead. He would try and drop as much information as he could. Make sure that Kise felt like he could ask Kagami about anything.  
***  
After four episodes Kise’s mind had started to wander. He decided to poke around the apartment while Kagami was out. He figured out where a lot of stuff was, things in the bathroom, the bookshelves, and the like. He started looking through the nightstand next to what seemed to be his side of the bed. Lube, condoms. Oh my god they were flavored. His throat felt tight all of a sudden. So blowjobs were, yeah they were happening in his life now. He quickly moved on. He found what must be his journal. He flipped it open and skimmed before putting it down. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to read it yet. Somehow it just felt wrong, but he didn’t know why. Shit no he had to read it. He quickly read it going backwards. Fuck. He needed to work on his journal writing skills. It was so random. One day he wrote about a new show that he watched, another day he just described his day. He did find out a couple of interesting things though. For one it sounded like he and Kagami’s parents got on swimmingly and apparently Kagami had some sort of rivalry with Aomine in this dimension too. He put the diary down and headed over to the closet. He was pleased to see that he still had an excellent sense of fashion. He also saw a few boxes down by his shoes, which he decided to investigate. He found extra underwear and socks, some older journals and… and a homemade dvd. All it said on it was ‘TR3/12/16.’ Ugh talk about vague. But maybe his journal sucked because he’d started vlogging his journal. He quickly ran over to the TV and exited out of GG.  
He was nervous that Kagami would come back right when his past self made some big reveal. Maybe this Other Kise had experienced something out of the ordinary and left him this clue. Although the dvd could totally just be some stupid video of him when he was five. He quickly put it in and sat on the couch, watching the tv expectantly as the video started.  
***  
Kagami had been in the gym for two hours. His legs were sore and he had a slight headache from thinking so hard. He was so thankful when the elevator doors opened into the penthouse.  
“Fuck Taiga so good. Yes, please ahhhhh.”  
Kagami stopped dead in his tracks as he looked between the screen and Kise. They’d made that video about a month ago something private for just the two of them. Kagami could see himself thrusting into Kise, both of them on their knees and Kise’s back against his chest. The sounds of slapping flesh and moaning filled the apartment and Kise just stood there, the color draining out of his face as he watched in horror, halfway towards the tv and looking like a deer caught in headlights.  
“Ryouta,” Kagami said as he walked over. This was clearly freaking Kise out, he needed to explain. Kise probably didn’t remember them making this. But as he got closer Kise flinched back his hands shaking as he tried to stop the video with the remote.  
“I- I can’t-,” and Kise bolted straight into the bathroom.  
Shit. Kagami grabbed the remote and turned off the film. He took it out and put the offending disc back where it belonged before heading over to the bathroom door. He knocked lightly.  
“Ryouta?”  
***  
Kise froze, his hands over his eyes as he willed his unbidden erection to go down. Here was the thing. He’d barely known Kagami before the lightning. They’d only met a couple of times. But now here he was supposed to be dating him. Not only that, but, if he was being honest, he found Kagami extremely attractive. Hell even in high school he’d been attracted to him. But it was one thing to be attracted to someone and another thing to want to have sex with them. But he was dating Kagami so it was ok right? Shit no it was not ok what if he wasn’t even from this universe. Then he’d be cheating with Kagami against Other Kise. Holy shit. He felt his face turn even redder.  
“Ryouta please, are you ok? I’m sorry, let me explain.” What? Kise flung the door open if only to tell Kagami that this definitely wasn’t his fault.  
He stood there with his hand on the door staring at Kagami, and fuck he felt so embarrassed.  
“Kagamicchi this is not your fault-” he started to say just as Kagami said “Ryouta listen.”  
They both stopped mid-sentence and Kagami’s eyes wandered down to what Kise was trying to cover with the door. “Oh,” Kagami said softly before turning bright red himself and looking off to the side. “So you weren’t disgusted, by… by the video that we made.”  
“No,” Kise said in a small voice. “Sorry.”  
“No, it’s, yeah. It’s fine. I just thought that you were… but you’re not so yeah.”  
“No, I… just didn’t realize that I would react that way when I saw it. I was really uh, surprised by the dvds contents so…” he said laughing weakly.  
They both glanced at each other. It was so awkward. Finally they just made their way back over to the couch and put GG back on. Kise vowed to himself to never speak of this humiliating experience ever again.  
***  
A couple days after the lightning Kise asked Kagami if he’d take him around their neighborhood.  
“Might jog the old memory a little.”  
Right before they left Kagami put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.  
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”  
Kise stared. Yes he was, in fact he had just learned that he could fill several books with the amount of stuff that he’d forgotten. It must’ve shown on his face because Kagami quickly held out a baseball cap and a pair of shades.  
“Oh,” Kise said feeling like an idiot. Yeah he’d had to deal with paparazzi even in his old life. Jeez. “Thanks Kagamicchi,” he said quietly. He shook his head and then said “Kagami,” even more quietly.  
“Ryouta,” Kagami said sternly. Kise hadn’t realized that he’d been looking at the floor until his head snapped up to look a very stern Kagami in the face. “You don’t have to try. If what’s coming to your mouth is Kagamicchi, then that’s fine. Don’t sweat it ok? You have enough to deal with without feeling like you have to protect my feelings too.”  
Kise let out a shaky breath. Damn, but he felt so much better. He felt surge of appreciation for Kagami and he quickly wiped the tears that were prickling his eyes and leaned in as Kagami wrapped his arms around him.  
“You can ask anything, do anything ok?”  
Kise nodded against Kagami’s chest.  
“Sorry, thank you. You don’t know how much that means to me.”  
They headed out. Both bedecked in hats and shades.  
Kagami pointed out different buildings to Kise. Or random memories that they’d had in the various neighborhoods that they walked through. It was strange because some places seemed familiar, but he could never quite remember why. Or he’d have fleeting images, but before he could really see what was going on the images would slip away. It was like he could feel someone hiding just out of sight, but he couldn’t find them.  
When they went to get coffee Kagami seemed overly excited when Kise ordered a latte. That was probably what he usually ordered. They finished their drinks and went back into the dazzling sunlight.  
“And that’s Tokyo Tower.”  
Kise stared at Kagami. “What’s Tokyo Tower?” he said, his eyes resembling saucers.  
Kagami stared at him. Kise could tell that he was trying to keep his cool. Kise hit him on the back of the head.  
“Jeez I didn’t go back into infancy I know at least that much. Jesus.”  
Kagami relaxed and let out a huff of a laugh. “I was about to explain what it was,” he said in disbelief. “Damn but you’ve always been a good actor.”  
Kise grinned. “My agent always told me that I should go into films.”  
“Uh….”  
“‘Uh’ what?”  
“You um, you kind of are into films?”  
Kise clutched Kagami’s arm in excitement. “I’m in a movie?”  
“Two.”  
“Oh my god we have to go.” Kise had completely stopped thinking about any of the confusion. All he wanted right now was to see himself in a movie. Oh man how many people got to say that they’d filmed a movie and then gotten to watch it without having any idea what happened?  
“Where are we going?”  
“Home Kagamicchi,” Kise said as he dragged him back the way they came.  
“Huh?”  
“Don’t huh me! We have to watch my movies!”  
“Yeah but-”  
“What, do we not own copies?”  
Kagami stared at him shrewdly. “This isn’t like the Tokyo Tower is it?”  
Kise had no idea what he meant by that. “What’re you talking about?”  
Kagami looked down at his feet like a child who was about to get into trouble.  
“Well you told me that if you ever caught those films in the house you’d confiscate them.”  
“I said what now?” Kise stopped in his attempt to drag Kagami back to the house. “But you totally bought them anyway, right? I mean that was a pretty stupid thing for me to say.”  
Kagami nodded fervently. “I just like your work.”  
“Right so it’s settled let’s go.”  
“Ok, but it’ll be shorter if we go that way,” Kagami said he pointed to the left.  
“Lead the way champ.”  
***  
Kise had insisted that they watch his films back to back. The truth was Kagami had three copies of each film. He’d hidden them around the house.  
“Don’t look,” Kagami said as he went to grab the films that he had hidden in the kitchen. Kise only ever looked in the coffee cabinet so it was pretty safe.  
Kise made a big show of closing his eyes, but then burst out laughing we he saw Kagami sneaking them out of a bag of flour.  
“You promised not to look!” he could feel his cheeks heating up.  
“You’re hilarious, you should’ve gone into dealing drugs. Seriously, you’re a natural. Now let’s get into our pjs and watch these masterpieces!”  
It was the first time in the past two days that Kise actually seemed well and truly relaxed. He seemed to be enjoying himself and teasing Kagami just like he always did. Kagami could feel his chest ache with how much he wished that Kise wouldn’t have to think about the missing memories. But he knew that it would haunt him for a long time.  
They watched Maybe Next Time first. It was a comedy in which Kise played a bad boy high school student who ended up doing increasingly ridiculous things to get the attention of a shy and unpopular girl named Hiromi.  
Kise was so enraptured by the film that he didn’t seem to notice Kagami looking at him. He wondered what it must be like to watch yourself in a film that you didn’t remember filming.  
Next they watched Kise’s action film: Not Enough Time. Kagami couldn’t help but laugh every time Kise was surprised by his own performance. And when Kise got frisky with his colleague in the film Kise’s mouth practically fell off of his face with how low it went.  
***  
Kise spent the rest of the week going into a research frenzy he wanted to acclimate himself before he started the hunt for the supernatural explanation to all of his problems. He googled himself and found out that he was a full time model and an actor. His bio said that he’d attended Teiko and Kaijo and then he’d gone into fulltime modeling. His bio also mentioned how his family had died in a car crash when he was 18. Kagami spent a lot of time checking in on him and working out, and on Friday he returned to practice.  
When Kagami was out of the apartment Kise would research the other GoM’s and their friends. He didn’t actually find that much. Most of his friends were the sort of people who would block their social media accounts. On Facebook the only GoMs that he was friends with were Aomine and Kagami. He must’ve befriended Aomine in high school. He already knew about Midorima. He looked up Takao and found out that he worked in marketing for some startup company. Well he’d always been charismatic, but Kise couldn’t tell if he knew Midorima. Murasakibara was hard to track down, but finally he found him. It looked like he owned a café near Kise’s apartment. Kise wrote down the address. He couldn’t find anything on Kuroko. It made him slightly jumpy, but then again Kuroko had never had things like Facebook back in his old life, so maybe he didn’t here either.  
He also went and talked to his manager to request that he go on hiatus for a couple months. He’d asked Kagami if he thought it was a good idea and Kagami had readily agreed that it was a good idea. In fact both Kagami and his manager seemed relieved that Kise was the one who suggested this break. Really he figured that he needed time to figure out who he was, figure out what the hell was going on, and then figure out how to fix whatever the hell was going on. He at least felt positive now that he was in research mode, even though he hadn’t really figured anything out yet.  
***  
He went in for his first check up with Midorima one week after the incident. Kagami had driven him and was now waiting in the lobby while Midorima stared at pictures of Kise’s brain.  
“How’s your memory? Have things started coming back?”  
Kise had spent so much time over the past week just trying to figure out who he was that he hadn’t thought about what he should do when Midorima asked him questions. Lying never got anyone anywhere good, but he didn’t know how to explain everything that he was thinking and feeling without sounding insane. So he just answered the questions that didn’t seem to touch on the supernatural.  
“I don’t remember anything of the last six years.”  
Midorima froze. “Nothing?”  
Kise shook his head, his pulse quickening. Midorima slowly lowered the brain scans.  
“Have you told your boyfriend?”  
Kise shook his head again.  
“This is your decision, but I am advising you to tell him. He can’t support you properly if he doesn’t know what’s going on.”  
Kise let out a strangled laugh. There was so much going on and none of it made sense. This was only the tip of the iceberg. Even if Kagami knew everything that he was thinking and feeling there was no way that he’d be able to help him. Hell even Midorima couldn’t explain the supernatural. Finally he answered Midorima’s request to talk to Kagami with a quiet “I’ll think about it.” He was about to leave when Midorima called after him.  
“Mr. Kise, is there anything else that you want to talk about?”  
Yes, Kise thought. But he just shook his head and headed out to the waiting room.  
He realized that the clock was ticking – he needed to get his shit on lock and he needed to do it quickly.


	4. Week Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lots of confessions. Lots of alcohol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok the groundwork is finally completed in this chapter. And now things start moving forward.

The way Kise saw it he had two problems. Firstly, he couldn’t account for six years of his life. Secondly, the parts of his life that he did remember were apparently not entirely accurate. He felt like he had just been handed some very inaccurate sparknotes with the last half missing. He didn’t know what he was supposed to know, or what was the same or different.

He didn’t want to think about it, but he knew that he had to. He pulled up a word document and started writing down everything that could be true.

  * I could’ve died and this was just some weird as all get out afterlife.
  * I’m Kise Prime and I just swapped lives with some Other Kise in a parallel universe. And Other Kise is back in my dimension. (But I’m not in my body because of the age difference… what?)
  * I’m in a parallel universe and the Other Kise is somehow dead.
  * I got struck by lightning and somehow my memory is all f*cked up. (But Midorima said that my injuries healed in mysterious ways, and there was the white room so… it’s probably supernatural not just amnesia)



Kise stopped typing and shuddered. This was just… not even real. He read over his list. He at least felt good about admitting to himself that this was what he was dealing with.

After that was done he password protected that shit.

Over the next week Kagami and Kise went out to a lot of different places and most of them didn’t seem like the sort of places that Kagami would frequent, so Kise guessed that they were places that he had liked to go to before the accident. He knew that he needed to talk to Kagami. But he didn’t know how to explain to Kagami that although he couldn’t remember the last six years he still knew who Kagami was.

Kise decided that if he hadn’t found a solution by the end of the week he’d just come clean. His soul couldn’t take all this anxiety.

***

“Kagamicchi, are we out?”

“Hah?”

“When I googled myself all of the celeb pages said that I was bi, but you never came up.”

Kagami looked uncomfortable.

“Um, we can revisit this, but uh we decided not to tell the public that we’re dating after the backlash that I had when I came out.”

“Backlash?”

“A lot of people in Japan weren’t thrilled that some ‘American masquerading as a Japanese guy’ was gay and doing so well in the game. My team doesn’t care, but well… you kept telling me that me dating you would be the tipping point. Actually we’ve argued about it a lot.”

Kise frowned. “So I don’t want you to be caused more trouble by dating a male model.”

Kagami made an annoyed huff “Yeah I’m getting annoyed just thinking about it.”

Kise…. Kise was starting to think that the Kise from this universe was a bit selfish. He didn’t want Kagami to watch his movies. He didn’t want Kagami to acknowledge them as a couple even though Kagami did. But he couldn’t say anything, not until Kagami knew that there was a possibility that he wasn’t Kagami’s Kise. He felt a wave of annoyance wash through him. Dear god he was jealous of himself.

“Are you ok Ryouta?”

“Yeah, just thinking, sorry.” If Kise knew for sure that there wasn’t some Other Kise he’d totally tell Kagami that they should come out. He, for one, did not care about that bullshit if Kagami didn’t care about it.

Then again he and Kagami weren’t really dating. Fuck, or were they? He liked Kagami, and he couldn’t exactly explain why, but he also knew that he didn’t love Kagami. I mean he barely knew him really. But this world was like a glimpse of what could be and he… he-

“I want a drink,” Kise said.

“It’s 11 in the morning.”

“What’s that saying? Oh, it’s five o’clock somewhere.” And you don’t know that up until last week I was underage.

Kise had found the liquor earlier but he had yet to have any. Of course in high school he’d had drinks at parties, but he’d never been able to just drink.

He stared at the alcohol.

“Ok, ok just sit down and I’ll spike you some coffee.”

“You’re wonderful,” Kise said as he stretched out on the couch.

***

Fuck Kise needed to stop saying things like that, because Kagami didn’t feel like he meant it in a boyfriend way. He really wasn’t sure how Kise felt about him, not since the accident. Kise didn’t touch him, not even casually. Sometimes they’d hug, but it was more comfort than romance. They hadn’t kissed, and Kagami had gotten reacquainted with his right hand. But it wasn’t the physical stuff that bothered him, it was the lack of intimacy. He had no idea what was going on in Kise’s head. He couldn’t read him anymore. Shit he needed advice.

He made Kise an Irish coffee.

He got the feeling that Kise was telling him lies by omission. But he wasn’t confident that if he confronted him he’d admit to it. He was positive that he wouldn’t tell him what he was actually thinking. Fuck. They’d agreed to be honest with each other. But now everything was different. All the rules had changed, because they were playing an entirely different game. But even through it Kagami still felt like Kise was playing on his team. Oh my god why was he thinking in campy basketball terms. Jesus. Ok no but he needed advice. Normally he’d ask Himuro or Alex, but he didn’t want to betray Kise’s confidence. And Himuro and Alex would know that he was talking about Kise. Oh no… there was only one person that he knew who was dumb enough not to think that he was talking about Kise. Granted he wasn’t sure about the quality of advice that he’d get, but he couldn’t keep it to himself anymore.

***

“Why the hell are we out at dinner Bakagami? I don’t want to see your ugly face unless it’s on the court.”

This had been a terrible idea.

“Just eat your damn steak Aho.”

“You’re paying right?”

“Fuck yes sure whatever.”

“I’m ordering wine.”

Definitely a bad idea then.

“Right so what did you want to talk about then? This isn’t a date right? I have a girlfriend, and she is smokin’.”

“Why the hell would I ask you out? There is no one worse to date. No one.” Kagami said as he speared some asparagus with his fork and pointed it at Aomine. “Anyways it’s about a really good friend of mine.”

“What you trying to ask him out?”

“No, Aho no one is asking anyone out.”

Aomine shut his mouth. FINALLY.

“Ok so here’s the thing, my friend is usually very honest, we’ve been close for a long time, but he’s been acting secretive recently.”

Aomine stared at him.

“Ba-ka-ga-mi, by friend do you mean boyfriend? Damn you sound like an idiot.”

Kagami was getting angry, he wasn’t sure that he’d even survive this lunch, let alone get any advice.

“Yes my boyfriend, god.”

“Well it’s simple: he’s cheating on you.”

“He’s what!”

“Does he ever sneak off? Disappear for stints? Have vague explanations for where he’s been?”

Yes, yes and yes. But still no to Aomine’s whole idiotic idea.

“You’re wrong he has amnesia jesus!”

Aomine choked on his red wine. “You’re dating pretty boy!”

“Keep your mother fucking voice down!”

Kagami and Aomine both glared at each other before looking at the tables next to them. Yeah shit they needed to get the check and go, people were definitely staring. Ah and they’d only just gotten the wine.

“Uh-” Kagami was about to apologize to the three other patrons when a young man asked for their autographs.

Saved, Kagami thought. They gave out autographs, paid, Aomine chugged his wine – and got heartburn – and then they scooted it on out of there.

“Hey Kagami.”

“Yeah?”

“Kise’s not being honest about what’s going on in his head?”

Kagami hesitated. Was he really going to tell Aho about this? But well, and he had no idea how this had happened, but Aomine was actually kind of his friend.

“Yeah, he’s definitely not telling me things. I don’t think he’s telling the doctor either. What if something’s really wrong?”

Aomine seemed to be deep in thought. “Maybe I should talk to him.”

“Hah? How would that help?”

“No think about it. He has nothing to lose by telling me. I’m an objective outsider. And maybe I can then tell him to get his shit together and talk to you or the doctor.”

That was… that was actually a kind of, somewhat good idea.

“I want to hit you right now Aho.”

“Oi why!”

“Because I’m actually going to go along with this idiotic plan.”

They glared at each other.

“Alright let’s go,” Kagami said.

“What, right now?”

“Yes now Aho! Let’s go! I have a boyfriend in need of your uh help.”

“I bet it killed you to say that,” Aomine said as he stretched up looking smug.

“Shut the fuck up.”

***

Kise was just getting back from Murasakibara’s café when he heard the loud blare of videogames as the elevator doors opened. He’d been going to the café almost everyday since he found the address.

Two hulking figures were on the couch playing some sort of first person shooter game.

“Aominecchi…” Kise said in surprise.

The two men turned around.

“Alright idol-san you and I are going out.”

“What?” Kise looked to Kagami in confusion.

“I’m taking you for a chat.”

Kise burst out laughing. Aomine willingly going out for a conversation, as if.

Aomine scowled grabbed his coat and pulled Kise right back into the elevator.

“Kagamicchi!” Kise wailed as the doors shut.

***

Aomine took him to some seedy bar in a dark basement and ordered for them.

“Alright Kise spill.”

“What?” Kise said genuinely perplexed.

The bar tender brought over two shot glasses.

Aomine gave an exasperated grunt. “What the hell have you been keeping Kagami in the dark for? I have the right to know considering you’re ruining my life.”

“How is this about you Aomine!”

Aomine shoved the shot glass into his hand while glaring at him. Kise took Aomine’s lead and threw his shot back. It burned like a thousand suns.

“Because, 1) Kagami’s all not-paying-attention,” Aomine signaled for another round, “which means that 2) he’s not playing well.”

Kise stared at him. “Aren’t Kagamicchi and Aominecchi on different teams?”

“YES!” Aomine said pleased that Kise had understood.

“Uh… aren’t you supposed to want your opponents to lose?”

“Models really are that dumb. I need him in peak performance so that I can crush him!” Aomine said a maniacal gleam in his eyes.

Now Kise really did get it, so typical, so juvenile.

“So, basically I need to tell you my issues,” Aomine passed him a shot, “because you,” he drank said shot, “want to ruin my boyfriend’s life even more.”

“Yes,” and Aomine downed his shot, before motioning to the bar tender for round three.

“Why do people even drink this?” Kise said as he held his glass up to the dim light, “it tastes like lighter fluid.”

“Ah I should’ve known, I’ll get you a long island iced tea.”

Kise stared at him, “you’re going to make me pay for this aren’t you?”

“Nah.” Kise looked pleasantly surprised until Aomine whipped out 10,000 yen. “Your boyfriend’s treat.”

“Right.”

“Anyways back to business, I have a smoking hot girlfriend to get back to so hurry it up.”

“YOU! A girlfriend?” Kise burst out laughing. The idea that Aomine could hold down someone, hell the idea that Aomine could remember someone else other than himself was hilarious. Although maybe he was laughing more than he usually would. Fuck he took it back, those tiny glasses were pure gold. Aomine was glaring at him while he whipped out his wallet and threw down a photo.

Aomine and Momoi were smiling up at him.

Kise bit his lip to stop himself from saying Momoi’s name. The bartender brought them their third round.

Aomine ordered him a long island.

“Ok I believe you, you’re dating Mo- this beautiful woman.”

“Right so anyways your problem go.”

“I suppose you mean besides the fact that I was in a coma with heavy injuries.”

“Yeah congratulations, so what aren’t you telling Bakagami.”

“Should I really be telling _you_ this?” Kise was starting to feel pleasantly pleasant.

Aomine stared again. “Pretty boy I’m only saying this one more time. YES. You know what I had to do today? I had to go to dinner DINNER with Bakagami. All because you got his panties in a twist. Worst day of my life.” He grabbed his shot. “I do not want to have to spend anymore time with him off the court. So you need to give him some peace of mind. Hell Kise he’s asking his sworn enemy for advice. That’s bad.”

He was already going to tell Kagami. But maybe it wasn’t enough.

“Why are you lying to him?”

“I’m not lying!”

Aomine narrowed his eyes.

“I’m just not… not telling him the truth.” Shit.

“So lying. What, do you not want to date him now that you’re all confused?

“That’s not it. Not even close,” he said angrily as he gripped his new shot glass before drinking its contents. “But that’s the problem. I don’t remember dating him.”

Aomine shoved a long island at him and motioned for him to continue.

“I woke up without the last six years.”

“Holy shit.”

“Right? I was hoping it’d come back, but fuck it just hasn’t. It’ll kill him.”

“Wait how do you even know who he is?”

Kise stared at his glass in misery.

“Oi, pretty boy!”

“Because fuck, because I have a different set of memories,” he burst out in outrage.

Aomine was quiet, his brow furrowed in concentration. “What if your memories were just dreams of people that your brain or whatever remembered.”

Kise thought about that. “No that can’t be it. It’s a good idea, but I also remember people that I shouldn’t have met. Like your girlfriend. Her name’s Momoi Satsuki right? Really smart and takes good care of you.”

Aomine stared at him. “Holy shit you’re a superhero.”

“What? No! Why are you excited!”

“Holy fuck no you are! You know things that you shouldn’t know, oh my god we could use this.”

“Calm down,” Kise said as he saw Aomine’s eyes light up. “It doesn’t matter because I can’t tell anyone anyway.”

“Why not?”

“If I told Kagami he’d think that I was insane.”

Aomine sighed, “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I agree with Kagami, you should tell him. I’m calling him to come get you.”

“No you can’t!” Kise said as he grabbed onto Aomine’s arm frantically.

“Why the hell not!”

“Because… Because.” Shit he’d felt so guilty for so long and the warmth that was permeating his body was also clouding his judgment, he was going to talk. “Because what if I’m from a parallel universe and I stole this Kise’s body? What if that’s why I know you all, but my memories are different?”

Aomine stared at him. “Kind of like a superhero.”

“Or a villain! Fuck what if I’m bad? What if I killed this Kise? What if I ruined Kagami’s life? I know it doesn’t make sense because I’ve only just met him, but Aomine I like him and I can’t explain why, but I want a chance. But if he finds out that I somehow got rid of his Kise he’d be devastated. He’d never be happy ever again. And then what if I go back to my world and that Kagami wants nothing to do with me?”

Aomine’s eyes were the size of saucers. “Woah.”

“Yeah.”

“Well,” and Kise could not believe that Aomine wasn’t freaking out, “you definitely need to drink this,” he pointed at the long island. “And you also definitely need to tell Kagami. Everything pretty boy. All of it. You make it sound like he’s a wimp. Also hell what if there’s some magic sorcerer messing with you, maybe you just need to undo whatever” he waved vaguely at Kise’s person, “and get your memories back. You could totally just be regular Kise.”

Kise took a shaky breath. “He’s going to be hurt.”

Aomine gave him a long look over. “He’ll definitely be hurt. But he’s hurting already. Truth is freedom or some other bullshit. You can’t move forward or whatever if you don’t tell each other things.” Kise nodded slowly. God it was bad when Aomine made sense. “Ok, I’ll tell him to come get us.”

***

“What the fuck Aomine! Did you get him completely drunk?”

“Kagami,” Kise said as he stared at Kagami and tried not to show how anxious he was.

“Ryouta, are you ok?”

Kise nodded. “I- I should talk to you.” Kise didn’t miss the way Kagami’s head snapped towards Aomine. Or the small nod that Aomine gave him. They dropped off Aomine and then went back to the apartment. Kagami brought him a glass of water and sat down at the table, waiting for him to start.

***

“There’s something that I need to talk to you about.” He forced himself to look into Kagami’s face. Kagami sat down, not saying anything. He just nodded. “I-,” Kise looked down at his hands, which were clenched on the table. “I haven’t been honest with you. But the truth is, I don’t remember the last six years. None of it.” He looked up quickly. “But I do remember you. But I don’t remember how we met, or when we started dating, or my parents, or Kasamatsu’s wedding. I don’t remember any of it.”

Kagami just stared. Kise could see every emotion as it crossed over his face: confusion, anger, sadness, confusion again. Kise was so scared that Kagami would yell at him.

“I don’t know what to say. What are you supposed to do when your boyfriend doesn’t know who you are? Do we stay together or-” Kagami’s voice cracked.

Shit.

Kise looked at Kagami trying to convey all his regret at having been the one who ripped Kagami’s life apart.

They sat there in silence.

“How do you know who I am?”

“You won’t believe me,” Kise said bitterly.

“Please, Ryouta, don’t lock me out.”

Kise took a deep breath. “I have memories from uh, a different life, maybe memories from a parallel universe. I remember a lot of people that I’m not supposed to have met in this world. I’ve been really confused, because I-” he could hear the small break in his voice. “I’m afraid that there’s another Kise trapped in my universe. I’ve been trying to figure out if there’s a way that I can go back and- and give you back your Kise,” he looked up at Kagami.

“You… you’ve been worrying about that this whole time?”

Kise nodded quickly.

Kagami let out a deep sigh, “this is why you don’t call me Taiga, or- or touch me.”

“Yes,” Kise said quietly.

“You don’t actually love me,” Kagami ran a hand through his hair.

“I-” he couldn’t say that he did love him, because that definitely wasn’t true, but he did like Kagami. And he was sure that if he stayed he’d fall in love with Kagami.

“You could be the Kise from here though right?”

“Yes,” Kise said, “but, but I don’t know.”

Kagami sat there in silence, thinking.

“In your world are we together?”

Kise shifted uncomfortably, “No, but we only met recently, and we’re in high school so… we don’t go to the same school, but we play each other in basketball.”

Kagami nodded.

They sat in silence again. Kise counting the seconds and Kagami thinking.

“We should talk to the doctor.”

“What?” Kise said in alarm. “We can’t, he’ll think I’m insane.”

“No, he could help us. Look Kise I don’t know if you’re from a different world, or if you’ve got some weird shit going on, but I know that I believe you. If you’re the Kise from here or somewhere else, either way, you must’ve known that I’d support you right? And- and if my Kise is trying to get home, then I need to help him get back. And even if you’re you, or uh you know not you- you know what I mean – either way I want to help you find the truth.”

Kise nodded. “I’ll move my stuff to the guestroom,” he said as he slid out of the chair.

****************

The next day Kagami and Kise went to the hospital for Kise’s appointment. Kagami was strangely polite after discussing everything. Kise couldn’t blame him though, hell Kise was either Kagami’s boyfriend, or he looked just like Kagami’s boyfriend. That would confuse the shit out of anyone.

“Right, well I guess I’ll just start from the beginning,” Kise said as he and Kagami sat in Midorima’s office. He told him everything that he’d told Aomine and Kagami.

Through it all Kagami just sat there watching, not interrupting him.

He finally stopped for breath. And even though he knew that he sounded crazy he still felt better for finally confessing his guilt.

He looked up at Midorima, whose face was steadily growing darker. He was silent for a long time just staring at Kise.

“I have one question.”

Kise nodded.

“Do you remember seeing anything when you were struck by lightning?”

Kise hesitated, but hell he’d already signed himself up for the asylum. He told him about the man with red eyes, how he looked familiar, but Kise didn’t know from where.

Midorima looked angry.

“I see. Please wait here,” he said before standing up abruptly and leaving. Kise stared after him. What? Had Kise really sounded that crazy? Was he calling the police? Kise looked at Kagami, whose face mirrored his concern. He looked back down at his hands. At least he’d gotten his first drink before they were going to take him away. He snorted and then immediately fell silent. He was an idiot.

Midorima came back in holding a magazine. “Recognize this man?” he said as he tossed it down in front of Kise.

Holy shit. The same red eyes were staring back at him. He quickly scanned the words on the page. _Business Insider: Akashi Seijurou, ranked #1 youngest billionaire and entrepreneur of the year._ All of a sudden he felt a sharp pain as his mind flooded with memories. Not the memories from this world, but his memories from before the lightning. Oh my god. How had he forgotten Akashi? It was like the man had been wiped from his brain, as if he’d never met him.

He looked up at Midorima who was, looking grave. “I think Akashi-sama has some explaining to do. It’s time we call his secretary Kuroko. I promise you Kise I’m going to help you figure this out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: the team starts getting assembled.


	5. Weeks 3 - 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang learns about gold Akashi and red Akashi

He looked up at Midorima who was, looking grave. “I think Akashi-sama has some explaining to do. It’s time we call his secretary Kuroko. I promise you Kise I’m going to help you figure this out. You and Kagami should go home for now. I’ll drop you a line when I’ve set up a meeting.”

“Midorima, do you think that Akashi did this?”

Midorima looked uncomfortable before he nodded. “It’s possible. After all, your injuries weren’t normal.”

Kise and Kagami got into the car in silence.

“You doing ok?” Kagami asked softly.

Kise thought about it. He used to be the type who would always feign comfort. He had been flirty like that, but now… well now everyone knew his shit anyway. And being honest had started to feel like a more natural state. Like he was dirty water that was being purified.

“Not really, but I will be. Are you doing ok?”

Kagami let out a small laugh. “Same as you I guess. I don’t this is all just… I just want to figure out what the hell happened.”

“Yeah that would… that would make me feel like a real person.”

“You don’t feel real?”

“I feel like a watermark,” Kise said quietly. Kagami must’ve been able to tell that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore, because he didn’t ask any more questions.

***

The day after Kise’s doctor’s appointment he got a call from Midorima.

“I talked with Kuroko, he’s coming up to Tokyo. If you can come to my house tonight...”

“I can come, let me check with Kagami.” He put his hand over the phone and screeched in the direction of the bathroom where Kagami had just finished his post-workout shower. “Kagamicchi, Kurokocchi’s coming to Tokyo tonight.”

Kagami opened the bathroom door and came out with a towel slung low on his waist. “Why’re you calling him Kurokocchi too?”

Kise was busy trying not to look at Kagami while he gave a shrug that he hoped Kagami would recognize as a tip off to his “memories.”

“Right, uh yeah I can go with you. Hell I want to see what this guy looks like for myself. He’s that bastards secretary?”

“I think he’s probably more than just a secretary. At least a personal assistant, but possibly a confident or… or more, also.”

Kagami was about to ask, but Kise held up a hand.

“Midorimacchi?”

“What?” He sounded annoyed, oh whoops, oh well if they’d be working together then the man should get used to being called Midorimacchi.

“Kagamicchi and I can come.”

“Perfect, seven sound alright?”

“Sure, bye Midorima.”

“Goodbye.”

Kagami came back into the room wearing dark jeans and pulling on a low V-neck.

Kise stared, why the hell did he look so good.

“You gave this to me,” Kagami said looking uncomfortable. “Uh, I mean Kise. Kise gave it to me.”

Kise just nodded.

“So uh he’s not just that guys secretary?”

“No… and you shouldn’t talk about Akashi like that. He’s not a bastard.”

“What?” Kagami looked at him like he was crazy. It was funny really that Kagami had listened to all of Kise’s stories and yet this is what made him freak out. “He’s the reason you were in a coma. Or at least that’s what the doctor thinks.”

“It’s not like that.” Besides Kise was pretty sure that in this world there were also two Akashi’s.

“I don’t know if he’s what caused the accident, Midorima seems to think so. It would explain some of the strangeness of my healing if the incident was linked to him, but he’s not… it’s complicated.” Kise wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t want to explain the two Akashi’s to Kagami. He didn’t think that he should have to justify his faith in him. And he wasn’t even sure if there were two Akashi’s here.

Kagami just went to get some water from the kitchen.

“I gotta head out for some errands. What time do we need to go to Midorima’s?”

“Seven.”

“You want to come with me to the store?”

Kise hesitated. It wasn’t going to be the same as before. They weren’t together now. Kise shook his head. He’d just head over to see Murasakibara. Wait, he had an idea.

“I should talk to Kasamatsu. I know that people have been giving me space, because that’s what Midorima asked you to tell our friends: that too many people might confuse me.” Kagami had let him know this a few days in, and Kise had nearly forgotten about it considering how preoccupied he’d been.

“You’re going to tell him everything?”

“Maybe just the memory confusion part.”

***

Kise asked Kasamatsu to meet him at Murasakibara’s, it was a Sunday and Kasamatsu readily cancelled his previous plans.

Kasamatsu smacked him upside the head as soon as he saw him. “What took you so long you asshat!”

“Kasamatsuchi! It hurts!”

“Kasa-what?” He placed another well-aimed smack. “It’s good to see you,” he said as he finally settled down.

Murasakibara’s place was small. There were no tables, but instead a wooden bar with six chairs. Kise ordered them each a cake and a coffee.

“So how are you?”

“I’m ok, but acutally there’s something that I need to talk to you about.” He told him about the memories. “And the doctor, Midorima, is helping me figure out what’s going on.”

“Wow, that’s just crazy.”

“Yeah, but I want to hang out with you and Sakurai and my other friends. So I thought I should let you know.”

Kasamatsu nodded along as he talked. “Yeah, it sounds rough, but you’re resilient. Are you and Kagami making things work?”

“We uh, we’re living together, but we’re taking a um- a break.”

“Was it your decision or his?”

“Both? It’s just not possible right now. I don’t remember dating him.”

“Man you guys were so good together.”

Kise felt a lump settle in his stomach. He felt guilty, because Kasamatsu was probably right.

“Maybe we’ll be good together later, just not right now. Anyways how’re you and Sakurai?”

“Good, actually I just got a promotion.”

“Wow! That’s incredible Kasamatsucchi! What’s your job title now?”

“Program Director and Regional Manager.”

“You’re really going places,” Kise said smiling.

They talked for about three hours before Kasamatsu said that he needed to get home for dinner with Sakurai.

“Oh my god it’s already 6:00, I gotta get going too, nice seeing you Kasamatsucchi!”

Kise got into his car. As he was driving home he considered the fact that he could now speak English and drive, which he hadn’t learned how to do in his pre-lightning memories. That would indicate that this was him right? Could his brain have swapped into this Kise’s body. He let out a huff of annoyance. Hopefully Kurokocchi would have the answers.

***

Kise and Kagami rang the doorbell. Kagami was so nervous, he was so out of his element.

“You’re late,” Midorima said as he held the door open for them.

“Nice to see you too Midorimacchi.”

“Uh, sorry,” Kagami said feeling uncomfortable. Kise remembered Midorima, but Midorima didn’t know Kise, it was so uncomfortable to watch Kise be overly familiar with people who didn’t know him. “Is Kuroko here?”

“Ah, Kagami, nice to meet you, I’m Kuroko.”

“Holy shit!” It’s like the guy just came out of nowhere.

“Kurokocchi!” Kise said as he hugged him. “He does that,” Kise said as he continued to hug Kuroko. Why was Kagami the only one that Kise was less familiar with? Damnit and why did he care.

“Right, yeah nice to meet you too Kuroko.”

Kise was looking between Kagami and Kuroko with a slight frown, but also looking expectant.

“What?” Kagami said, annoyed that Kise was still glomped onto Kuroko.

Kise smiled, “oh nothing. Anyways, Kurokocchi have we met before?”

***

“Ah Midorima explained to me about your situation Kise-kun. Yes we’ve met. Sometimes you come over to dinner with Akashi and I.” Oh so they were more than work colleagues. Kise had wondered in high school if they would ever date. It seems that they were.

Kise nodded, ok to business. “Do you know what happened? Did Akashi do something to me?”

“Can we at least sit down first?” Midorima said as he came into the room with a bottle of wine. “It seems kind of ill-fitting, but actually Akashi gave this to me.”

“Wait you know Akashi, and I know Akashi, but we’ve never met?” Kise asked. To his surprise it was Kuroko who answered.

“Midorima and Akashi are childhood friends, their parents are friends, however they didn’t go to school together. You and Akashi went to Teiko together. You became friends in shogi club.

“Hah? I played shogi?”

Kuroko nodded.

“Right, great, shogi,” whenever Kise found out weird things like this he wanted to kick something. Because it was times like this when he felt like this definitely wasn’t his life. Why the hell would he play shogi? Boring as fuck. But after all this could he really just go back to high school? It sounded wrong to stay, but he wasn’t sure if he could return either.

“Are you ok Kise-kun?” Kuroko asked.

Kise jolted. “Yeah, sorry, I uh zone out a lot,” he said quickly looking up and smiling. He noticed that Kagami was staring at him in some concern, but he ignored it. “Anyways carry on Kurokocchi, what happened?”

“I’m sorry Kise but I didn’t actually know about your accident. I don’t really follow the tabloids. And actually I didn’t know that you had an appointment with Akashi. He must’ve set it up with you without my consultation, which is rare.” Kuroko let out a sigh. “He has insomnia, he always has. I didn’t think anything of it. But after Midorima called I started to wonder. I think that it’s possible that recently, when he wakes in the middle of the night it’s his other self. Because then the red Akashi wouldn’t realize that the gold Akashi was emerging. It’s very possible that when you met with him for your meeting, you met the gold Akashi.”

Kise tried to think it through. “Do you think that gold Akashi is the one who set up the appointment?”

“It’s possible,” Kuroko said seriously. “And you’ve had meetings before, so you probably wouldn’t have thought it out of the ordinary.”

“So, hypothetically, gold Akashi is awakened in the middle of the night and is sneaking around. We don’t know what he’s up to, but he’s being secretive. He makes an appointment with me and then zappo goes Zeus on my ass?” Kise finished feeling that this seemed very improbably.

It was silent. Midorima’s brow was furrowed. Finally he spoke.

“If you had somehow discovered that gold Akashi was making appearances do you think that you would’ve called Kuroko right away to tell him?”

Kise frowned. “I have no idea, I don’t have any idea how pre-lightning Kise would do things.”

“Maybe you were trying to help gold Akashi, bring him back to the light as it were, and he finally decided to dispose of you,” Midorima said nonchalantly.

“Or I could’ve discovered what he was up to and that’s why he got rid of my memories,” Kise volunteered.

“Ok, I’m sorry what?” Kagami said looking horrified. Oh fuck they’d forgotten that he had no idea about Akashi or the two Akashi’s. Midorima filled him in.

“Uh, right. So you think that this uh, bad Akashi is up to no good and that Kise found some part of it out and so Akashi either tried to kill him with lightning and failed, or just tried to wipe his memories?”

“Right,” said Midorima. “That was surprisingly succinct,” Midorima gave him an appraising look. Kise snorted, even here Midorima seemed to think that Kagami was a bonehead.

“Kuroko, does red Akashi know that the other Akashi is emerging?”

“I’m not sure, even I wasn’t aware of the possibility until just now.”

“How many times has he emerged here?” Kise asked.

“Just in high school,” Kuroko answered. “His father was pushing the family business on him, he felt the need to ‘rise to the family expectations.’”

“What made him go back to red Akashi?” Kagami asked.

Good question, Kise thought.

Kise stared at Kuroko who wasn’t saying anything. Oh my god was that a blush?

Midorima clicked his tongue in annoyance.

“I told him I wouldn’t be with him if he was like that,” Kuroko said looking off to the side.

Kise stared incredulously.

“No this makes sense,” Midorima started. “Gold Akashi loves Kuroko too, so if he was making appearances he wouldn’t want Kuroko to know because then Kuroko might leave him.”

“Huh, so he’s like still aware or present inside of red Akashi.”

Midorima shrugged.

“So how do we get Kise’s memories back?” Kagami asked.

“We don’t even know if I am ‘Kise.’” Kise said. He was annoyed again. Kagami needed to remember that this didn’t have one possible outcome. “He didn’t necessarily wipe my memory. He could’ve swapped me. He has special gifts right?”

“I’ve never heard him mention parallel universes,” Kuroko said slowly.

“But Akashi’s powers are… not in our realm of imagination,” Midorima countered. “We have no idea what he’s capable of.”

“Right so how do we figure out who I am?”

It was silent again as they all thought.

“I need time to think about this,” Midorima finally said. “I think for now we should just… take a break. Kuroko you need to try and find out more about what we’re dealing with. I think our first priority should be trying to figure out what’s going on with Kise and then we’ll worry about Akashi.”

Kuroko was looking kind of down. “Kurokocchi, thank you for helping me. I’m going to help you too.” Kuroko looked up. Kise knew that it was harder for Kagami than it was for him. And it must be just as hard for Kuroko. After all, Kuroko’s boyfriend was responsible for hurting one of his friends. And Akashi was also ‘turning to the dark side’ as it were.

“I want Akashicchi back too.” Kuroko looked startled, but then he gave a small smile. Kise held out his fist. Kuroko eyed it before touching it with his own. It felt familiar to Kise. They matched his memories. It was good to see them doing the same thing here in this time and place.

“Alright, Kagamicchi you ready?”

Kagami shook his head in apparent bewilderment, but then got up anyway.

***

Kagami was spending less and less time at the apartment. Kise knew that he had more training sessions as preliminaries were coming up, but Kise got the impression that that was also just an excuse. And well Kise didn’t blame him. Actually he was kind of relieved to just be alone. He actually spent a lot of time talking with Midorima in the next couple of weeks. Kuroko hadn’t been able to find anything substantial and Kise was starting to think about the looming deadline for starting work again. Kasamatsu helped fill him in on the outline of his life from high school on. He at least had enough information to not feel totally lost all of time. Midorima had started talking about finding a ‘bat cave.’ Somewhere where they could hold meetings and do research. His family owned a large chain of hospitals and so after two weeks of making phone calls he finally set them up with a warehouse that had been converted to an office, but had remained unused.

Kise met up with Midorima exactly one month after the lightning to look at the space. It was small and bare, but Midorima had already made plans for construction and called a contractor that his family frequently used.

“We’ll need to make some modifications and get better security, but the groundwork is set. Kise I think that we’re in for a long haul. It might be awhile before we get you any answers.”

Kise nodded. Yeah he had worked that out for himself.

***

Kise was always out at weird hours because he had to work around Midorima’s schedule. It turned out that he usually worked the management side for the family business, but whenever odd cases cropped up he’d take them on, like Kise’s for instance. He got home around 11 PM on Thursday after a conference call with Kuroko. He said that he’d found something in the science division storage unit that Akashi’s company had. Some top-secret not-manufactured-for-the-public one-of-a-kind storage area.

When Kise got home it was to find Kagami on the couch watching a home video. The light cast by the elevator doors opening must have alerted him to Kise’s presence as he hastily turned off the dvd, but not before Kise saw Other Kise talking animatedly to Kagami on the screen.

“Kise, I thought you were going to be out later…”

Kise had been going back and forth between feeling bad for Kagami because he’d lost his boyfriend, and being annoyed at him for thinking that Kise was his boyfriend. But it was rare for Kise to see Kagami when Kagami didn’t think that anyone was watching. The more Kise learned about this life the more he felt like he had no escape, he didn’t fit here, but he didn’t fit back in high school either.

“We got done early. Kuroko’s sending us something tomorrow so I have to be back at the office pretty early.”

“Right I was just…” but words seemed to fail him as he looked at the now blank TV screen. “It’s never going to be the same,” he said quietly as if to himself. Then he jolted. Kise must’ve come back at a really bad time. He’d never thought of Kagami as much of a thinker. But now that he spent time with him he saw how concerned he was. Kise wanted to tell him that it would be ok. But it wasn’t his place to tell him anything. And the small ache in his chest didn’t change that.

“Kagami, you should come by the office after practice tomorrow. I think you and Kurokocchi would really get along well. Just stop by.”

Kagami nodded. “I’m off to bed.” He walked towards Kise before aborting the movement and heading to his bedroom. Shit for all intents and purposes Kise was an alien walking around in the body of the man that Kagami loved. He’d need so much therapy.

“Right,” Kise said to himself. “Well the sooner we figure out who I am the better.”


	6. Weeks 6 - 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They solve one problem and start to face another - or something.

“What is it?”

Kise and Midorima watched as a shipping service brought a huge box into the room. They’d had to use their van to take it into the garage entrance of the warehouse.

“We were told that you could set it up on arrival,” the delivery guy said.

Midorima nodded and signed for the package. His eyes tracked them as they left the building.

The garage door shut.

“Let’s see what it is.”

They went about unwrapping what turned out to be a huge glass box with all sorts of dials and buttons as well as several spots inside that looked like they were designated for people. MAK was printed in big letters on the front.

“MAK,” Kise read before he opened the door and stepped into the box.

“Warning usage requires activation code,” came Akashi’s smooth voice

Kise jumped and scampered out looking around for Akashi. He wasn’t there. It had been automated.

“What in the world?”

But Midorima was already running his hand along the side of the box and bending down to look at a panel.

“It’s a transport machine.”

“Like a car?” Kise said. Midorima stiffened and stood up.

“Does this look like a car to you?”

Ohhhh so Midorima could be a jerk here too.

“No,” Kise said, half indignant, half amused.

“It transports through something else entirely.”

Kise just stared at him with his mouth open, what the hell did that mean.

“Right well, when you feel like explaining let me know.”

Kise grabbed his suit jacket. “I have to go meet with my agent.”

***

Kagami was just finishing his first big game of the season. He instinctively looked up into the stands. But there was only the glow of the lights. No yellow eyes peering down at him. Kise always came to his first game after training. And often Kise would come to his other ones too. Kagami always told him that he didn’t have to, but Kise would whine and cling and be a general menace. And Kagami would feel indignant and turn bright red, but he’d always say that yes, in fact, he did play better knowing that Kise was there.

“You coming Kagami?”

Kagami came out of his haze and hurried to the locker room. He checked his phone before starting up his car.

 

_From: Ryouta – ta – ta_ _J_

_Had to meet agent. Sorry I missed your game >-< _

_Come to warehouse after?_

Warehouse? But then he looked down again and saw an address. He put his car in drive and headed out.

When he came in Aomine, Kise and Midorima were peering at a huge glass box with levers and switches. Kuroko’s face was large-as-life on skype. He seemed to be pointing out different panels on the box. Aomine looked angry – well that just meant that he was confused and bored. Kise looked inquisitive. Both he and Midorima were examining every inch of the box carefully.

“I’ll come down tomorrow to help explain further, and then we can make a plan.”

“Thanks Kurokocchi, this is a real help,” Kise said as he stared at another panel that made absolutely no sense to him.

***

The next day found the five of them back at the warehouse.

“So in summation,” Kuroko finished. “We stick Kise into the box and he should be able to find his other self. Now let’s assume that Other Kise is trapped in your life, and therefore still in high school?”

Kise nodded.

“So the next question is how are we going to get Kise alone?”

They sat in silence.

“Couldn’t you just grab him?” Aomine asked.

Midorima seemed to be trying to refrain from rolling his eyes. “We don’t want to accidently run into ourselves over there.”

“Send me a love letter,” Kise said quietly.

“What?” Kagami said, looking disturbed.

Kise sighed as he got off of his crate. “I always answered girls seriously. Even if it’s me from this universe I’m sure he’d do the same.”

Kagami looked like he was about to protest.

“Done,” Midorima said. “Kise and I will wait while Kuroko sneaks it into Other Kise’s locker.”

“I can’t go,” Kuroko said.

“Why not?”

“Because we need someone here to monitor the machine.”

“I feel like your particular abilities of stealth would be good for our mission. We don’t even know what this other earth could be like,” Kise said.

“Kise, we need to make sure that we get back in one piece,” Midorima reasoned.

“Can I go yet? Actually why am I even here?” Aomine cut in.

Kise had almost forgotten that Kagami and Aomine had joined them. But when his eyes lit on Aomine’s face he knew.

“Oh my god. Momoicchi!” he said excitedly.

“Oi! Stay away from my girlfriend pretty boy!”

“Hmmm worried that I’d beat you?” Kise purred.

Kagami gave him a look of hurt. Shit Kise had forgotten that… that his life was fucking complicated.

“Not a chance,” Aomine barreled on, noticing nothing.

“Right well, what I meant was that she could really help us. She could stay on this side and monitor so that Kuroko could go through with us.”

“And what makes you think that I’ll let you put her in harms way?” Aomine said looking on the verge of the Zone.

“Do you guys have the Zone here?” Kise asked distractedly.

“Huh?” Aomine said.

“Right, never mind.”

“So Momoicchi.”

“You want to drag her into this mess? What if something goes wrong?”

Midorima closed his eyes as if praying for strength. “Aomine, please, just ask her. If she doesn’t want to we won’t make her.”

“Fine, but if she gets hurt.”

“She won’t,” Kise said. He was so tired of all this shit. “She’ll be on this side, you all will be fine.”

“Kise you don’t have to do this,” Kagami said, looking worried.

“Don’t I though? Are you ok with never knowing if I’m your boyfriend or a look alike? There’s no chance for you unless you know who’s who. And besides,” he said looking down, “I can’t live like this.” No one said anything. Kise chanced a glance at Midorima who nodded. He couldn’t look at Kagami, he didn’t want to know what his facial expression was saying.

“So Kuroko, Kise and I will go, and the rest of you can wait here.”

***

Momoi had been extremely excited to be onboard. Apparently she was a big fan of Kise’s, but she treated him normally so it all went quite smoothly.

Kise, Kagami and Aomine were waiting for Midoirma at the warehouse after catching Momoi up on their current predicament. Now Kuroko was giving an extremely thorough explanation of the machine to Satsuki. It hadn’t been like this when he’d told Midorima and Kise.

They were at the computers and then looking at chemicals, and then back over by the machine. And all the while Kise just kept running through the plan.

Finally Midorima came.

“Midorimacchi! They’ve been sciencing all day. Can we go home now or has anything changed?”

Midorima shook his head. “No, we’re good to go. Make sure to be here by seven tomorrow. We need to get to your universe or memories or whatever nice and early so that we can leave the love letter before Other Kise gets to school.”

“Roger, copy, sir yes sir, Kagamicchi let’s go.”

“Yeah, ok, good luck tomorrow.” It really was incredible that Kuroko understood this machine. His Kuroko had never been that smart.

***

Kuroko watched as Kise and Kagami left.

“This is really very impressive Kuroko. Good work. I’ll see you both in the morning,” Kuroko waited until Midorima had shut the door leaving him, Aomine and Momoi.

“Satsuki are you done yet? We have dinner plans.” Aomine said looking pissed.

“Hmm almost!” she said brightly. “Why don’t you go wait by the car while Kuroko and I finish up.” Aomine scowled but agreed.

Kuroko and Momoi stood there, both waiting in silence until the door banged shut.

“So tell me,” Momoi said looking amused. “What’s your plan for when we strap them in tomorrow and this machine totally doesn’t work because half of what you just said wasn’t real science.”

“That won’t happen,” Kuroko said staring blankly. “Because Akashi built this for Midorima.”

Momoi’s mouth dropped. “Akashi Seijurou? The guy who screwed Kise over built this?”

Kuorko nodded. “And it’s not the science that makes it work. Akashi built it specifically with Midorima in mind. He said that if Midorima believed that it was his destiny to travel through space and time with this, then it would take him where he wanted to go. It’s not science, it’s...”

“Mystic?”

“I would say more spiritual. Midorima’s very concerned with the signs of the universe.”

Momoi’s eyes widened and she just nodded. “I guess we’ll see tomorrow.”

“Yes, but it’s imperative that Midorima not realize that it’s him that’s doing the traveling, otherwise he might have stage fright. We can’t afford to let that happen. This only works if Midorima believes that it works.”

“So that’s why you pretended to explain it all to me, so that Aomine and Kise would also support the idea that it’s real science?”

“Right.”

“Right, ok. Ah I better go, Dai-chan’s waiting. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

***

Kise and Kagami spent a lot of time not talking. But this silence felt different. Everything would change tomorrow.

“Kise.”

Kise startled.

“Yeah?”

“Whatever happens tomorrow, just-” He seemed to be collecting himself. “Just know that I want you to be happy.”

“Thank you Kagamicchi, I want you to be happy too.” He wanted to tell him that he liked him, that no matter what was true or not, he had really started to fall for Kagami. But he couldn’t say it. It wasn’t right to mess with Kagami’s emotions any more than he already was. If he was the same Kise that Kagami had dated before then Kagami would feel good if after everything he liked Kise. But if he was a different Kise then he’d feel guilty for liking him. And it was the same if the opposite was true. If Kagami didn’t like him, but then found out that he was in fact his Kise he’d never forgive himself. Kise sighed, this was all kinds of fucked up.

“Kagamicchi, you know that no matter what you think or feel about me it’s ok, I don’t think that any Kise could be mad at you no matter what.”

When Kagami didn’t say anything Kise looked over. Kagami’s eyes were kind of glassy.

“Thank you.”

They rode the rest of the way home in silence.

Kise couldn’t sleep. He was so nervous and confused and his brain just wouldn’t shut off. But by this time tomorrow he’d at least know.

***

“You brought bagels?” Kuroko said.

“It’s important to eat before traveling!” Kise said. But really he just woke up at five and decided that he needed to get moving.

“Morning gents,” Momoi said as she came in through the main door.

“Momoi-san, thank you for your help,” Midorima said as he investigated the bagels.

“No problem, now just remember to make it back here in one piece, or three, or four if you pick up another Kise.” She frowned slightly.

“Don’t worry Momoicchi we’ll be back in no time. Easy peasy.”

“So optimistic,” Kuroko deadpanned.

“Kurokocchi! My heart! Anyways I have a love letter ready so let’s get going!” he said as he flipped out the letter that he himself had written.

They crowded around the machine.

“It should drop you off behind the Kaijo tennis courts so just try and relax and focus on where you’re going,” Momoi said as she opened the glass door to the MAK.

In they went. Kise felt more nervous than he’d ever felt in his life.

“Good luck,” Momoi said. “And here it goes,” she turned on the accelerator and the machine whirled around them. Kise could see Midorima’s brow crease in concentration and he too focused on where he was going, back to a world that he knew.

He landed on the ground, having been thrown forward as if by a catapult.

“Ow!” he said as he stood up and looked around. There were the courts, and there on the ground was a wheezing Kuroko and a muttering Midorima. “It worked, we’re here.”

***

Kagami couldn’t sit still. He, Momoi, and Aomine talked about basketball for a while. Then Kagami asked them about how they met, how long they’d been dating and some other questions. Momoi must’ve known how nervous he was because she graciously provided stories and other random information to distract him. A half hour passed. They ate bagels. An hour passed and Momoi asked if they wanted some coffee. She was an addict and was brewing herself some. After two hours Kagami was about ready to lie down and die. He was just about to voice his concern when the machine lit up. Momoi ran over to the control panels and then the wind came. It whirled in the glass box just as it had when their friends had left, and now Kagami could see bodies rematerializing. He saw Midorima, and Kuroko tumbling out of the box and then there was Kise, stumbling forward and looking frazzled but also looking just as he had when he entered. And then Kagami heard a yelp coming from behind Kise. A hand had appeared on Kise’s shoulder and Kagami bolted up in terror. Kise was turning around and all Kagami wanted to do was make sure that this person wasn’t going to hurt Kise. But then Kise was tromping out of the machine and the other person was trying to get out too, but he fell flat on his face. Kagami was staring at the boy on the floor, who was moaning and saying “Kisecchi it hurts!”

“Are you ok?” Kise said as he helped up-

Kagami’s mind froze. There was an adult Kise, and there was a young Kise, crying, black eyeliner running down his face as he glomped onto the older Kise.

“Does it hurt Kise? Are you ok?”

Kagami stood in shock as one Kise fretted over another. And he was just taking a step backwards when the boy saw him.

“Taiga!” Oh my god it was HIS Kise. He said his _name._

The boy came sprinting over and hugged him fiercely, his body racking with renewed sobs. Kagami just had the wherewithal to hug back as he looked up at the older Kise, asking silently if this was _his_ Kise.

But when they locked eyes Kise just looked down, and then turned towards Midorima to say something quietly.

“Taiga I’ve missed you so much. I was so lonely, you have no idea.”

***

“Midorima, we need to figure out what exactly is going on. This can’t be right.”

“What the fuck!” Came Aomine’s angry voice. Kuroko, Midorima and Kise turned away from the spectacle of Kagami and Other Kise to look at Aomine who was looking pissed. Oh classic Aomine. So confused that he’s angry. Momoi was holding his hand, grounding him and trying not to smile.

“Let’s discuss,” Midorima said as he went over to the conference table. Momoi dragged Aomine. Kise and Kuroko followed, that is until Kise remembered the other two.

“Come on,” Kise said over his shoulder. He could see Other Kise whispering into Kagami’s ear. Kagami was bright red and Kise honestly couldn’t tell if he was terrified or overjoyed.

“Kuroko you can have the honors,” Midorima said as they all settled down, Other Kise’s chair having been dragged right over next to Kagami’s, Kise could see the googly eyes and he felt slightly revolted. He did not understand how his face could look so enchanted. Honestly it was creepy.

“After the machine transported us, we landed at Kaijo, but no one was there. We walked around for a while, but it was pretty obvious that something was wrong. No one was on the streets or in the classrooms. We panicked a little but then decided that we should scope out Kise’s other hangouts, but then…” Kuroko turned towards Kise.

He’d been so busy staring at Other Kise that he’d barely followed the story.

“Right, then I got this kind of feeling, I don’t know how to describe it, but I felt like we needed to go to the apartment where my family and I used to live. So we headed over and that’s where we found him,” Kise finished nodding at Other Kise.

“What so you just knew where he was?” Aomine snapped.

Kise shrugged. “Honestly I don’t know.”

“So this is Kagami’s Kise?” Aomine asked.

Midorima, and Kuroko exchanged a look that only Momoi and Kise saw. Other Kise was not observant at all. What the fuck.

“He remembers everything,” Kise finally said. Kagami let out a relieved exhale.

“But then why are you like this?” Kagami asked Other Kise, a look of deep concern on his face.

“I don’t know,” Other Kise sniffled, before turning to Kise. Kise felt like he was about to be murdered, as if he were unclean. He felt like… like the impostor. He could see Momoi’s calculating eyes on him. Midorima was also giving him an appraising look. As if he might be a threat or-

“That’s enough.” Kuroko finally said. “I trust this Kise, he couldn’t have tricked us. We should be more concerned about the fact that Kise’s world doesn’t exist. There were no people there so I’m guessing we didn’t transport time or space.”

Aomine’s mouth was hanging open. Other Kise and Kagami both had furrowed brows.

“But how could he not have a world to go back to when this is clearly my world!” Other Kise said looking annoyed and tearful. Now Midorima turned his gaze on him.

Kagami had startled and was rubbing Other Kise’s back soothingly. Kise didn’t even know how to feel. They couldn’t both be real. So who was the fake? Hell this Kise knew everything, he’d convinced all of them of that when they’d been in the machine. Other Kise knew the history of this world, where and when he’d met people, how his parents had died and everything else. The only thing that was different was that he was in a younger body now.

Kise was startled out of his thoughts by Momoi’s cool voice cutting in. “Might I request a consultation between, Midorima, Kuroko and myself?” She looked slightly smug, as if she had already figured it all out.

They traipsed out of the room. And Kise was left in the most awkward grouping. Fuck.

“Kise why are you like zero years old now?” Aomine said, still looking annoyed.

Other Kise pouted, and Kise felt shitty about the fact that Aomine had called Other Kise ‘Kise.’

“I don’t know.” Kise was sure that Other Kise was going to yell at him as he turned to stare at him, but then he just looked upset. “Kisecchi what’s going on? Why are we not right?”

Kise had been starting to get annoyed by Other Kise, but this was unexpectedly sad to watch.

“I-”

“Kagami-kun, we need you,” Kuroko said.

“Holy fuck,” Aomine said. Kuroko had appeared out of nowhere.

Kagami detached himself with some difficulty, whispering to Other Kise as he did, and then giving an awkward wave in Kise’s direction.

Other Kise was puffing out his cheeks as he turned his attention to Kise.

“I don’t like this,” he said simply.

Kise just stared, yeah join the club, he thought.

“It doesn’t make sense. Who _are_ you?”

“Fuck, I don’t know how to answer that,” Kise said annoyed.

“Damn pretty boy, you never used to curse this much.”

“It’s a recent fucking development,” Kise said as he turned to look towards the conference room that the others had disappeared into. “I’m going for a smoke.”

“You smoke?” Other Kise said, eyes wide.

“I do today,” he said as he headed out. He’d seen a pack in one of the desks. It was probably old, but he didn’t care.

***

Midorima nodded along. “You think that I should do DNA testing?”

“If Kuroko is right, and this is really Kise then the tests should prove that, it might explain age too.”

“We should talk about what the possibilities even are at this point,” Midoirma said rubbing his eyes.

“Ok well parallel universes,” Kuroko said.

“That’s out,” Momoi said quickly. “If it were parallel universes then his world should still be there. There’s no way that Akashi could vanish a bunch of people, also they should be the same age if that were true.”

“Right,” Midorima said. “Probably not a clone either, because of the age difference and the weird memory discrepancies.”

They sat there in silence thinking.

“We should ask Kagami what he thinks of the Kise’s after they’ve had some time to talk,” Momoi said.

“Won't that be really hard for the Kise’s though?” Kuroko asked.

“We don’t have a choice at this point.” Midorima said. “Let’s call him in just to make sure that he’ll be ok with this arrangement for now.”

Kuroko grabbed Kagami.

“Kagami, we want to wait a week and keep thinking,” Midorima said simply. “Will that be a problem for you?”

Kagami just shook his head in a daze.

“Ok, we’ll be back out in a minute.”

Kagami left again.

Midorima hesitated before adding, “I think for now we should keep this conversation between the three of us, it’s always possible that one or both of the Kise’s isn’t as they seem.”

The other two nodded.

They went to join the others.

“Where’s Kise?” Midorima said looking around.

“Smoking,” Aomine said grinning.

“What?” Kagami said looking confused. Kise had never smoked. What the hell.

“Right well, we’re going to leave things as is for now so you can all head back. But Kagami and Kise, we want to do DNA testing so if you could both talk to the other Kise then we should set up a time.”

“Wait can we like assign names or something?” Aomine said as Kise came back from his smoke break.

“Names?” he asked.

“For you and uh Kise.” Midorima said looking between the two.

“I should be Ki-chan!” Other Kise said excitedly, “because it’s cute. And he can be the full name ‘Kise.’”

Kise just stared. Right.

“Sure,” he said.

“Alright, so we want to do DNA testing on Ki-chan,” he grimaced, “and on Kise.”

“I’m free on Thursday,” Kise said.

Midorima looked to Kagami and Ki-chan. They both agreed.

“Perfect, see you all then.”

Ki-chan grabbed Kagami’s arm. “Let’s go home,” he purred.

Kise stood stock still. Oh hell, never mind that that was the body of a minor. His body. He did not want to be home while they had marathon sex. His mind flashed to the DVD that he’d found the first night. Hell to the no.

Shit, that god he’d driven himself.

“You coming?” Kagami said, finally remembering that Kise was there too.

“I’m going to stay at a hotel,” he said. Kagami stopped.

“Taiga let’s go.”

“I-,”

“I’ll see you on Thursday,” Kise said before turning resolutely away.

The others were staring at him, but none as hard as Aomine.

He waited for the footsteps of the other two to fade, before he let out a sigh.

“Kise I have an extra room if you’d prefer,” Midorima said. “I live alone so it wouldn’t be a problem.”

Kise just shook his head. “No, thank you Midorimacchi, but I’ll be fine, I’ll just get a hotel room.”

Aomine stood up abruptly. “Let’s get a drink.”

Kise nodded. Yeah a drink sounded good.

“Satsuki?”

“Sure.”

“I have to get back to Akashi,” Kuroko said.

Midorima frowned then.

“Kuroko why hasn’t Akashi stopped us?”

“What?”

“Well he has to know that you’re helping Kise.”

Oh shit, Kise thought. That was true. What if Akashi came back to finish him off?

“He has to know, honestly it’s been worrying me too,” Kuroko said. “I’m sure that Gold Akashi knows everything that Red Akashi does, and maybe more.”

Kise shivered, he was seriously considering the possibility that Akashi might try to off him via magical weather again, if that’s what had even happened.

“Right, well let’s add that to our list of things that we should think about,” Momoi said firmly, “I think we need a break for now.”

“Yes,” Midorima said coming out of his thoughts. “See you on Thursday.”

They all headed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the late update >-


	7. Lightning Strikes, Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One mystery is solved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the late update - and the short chapter. I rewrote the ending three times, and I was trying to get all the way through, but I've decided to chop it into chunks instead. Thank you to everyone who's bearing with my crappy update-timing.  
> Sorry |x･`)

Kise was standing on the balcony.

_“Taiga,” Other Kise said as he kissed Kagami. “Taiga I missed you, I missed you so much.”_

_“Ryouta,” he breathed back holding onto him fiercely. He loved him. And he was here with him. He knew him. He recognized him._

It was starting to rain.

_“I love you Taiga,” he said as he pulled Kagami down on top of him on the bed. He’d been alone for so long._

_“Don’t ever leave me, don’t leave me ever again.”_

The sky was dark and he felt his eyes misting over. His home didn’t exist.

_“I won’t I promise.” Kise was panting. His hair matted to his forehead._

I’m not even real. I can’t be real.

_I promise, I promise, I promise, I promise._

They’re happy. And they don’t know what to do with me. The rain was getting heavier.

_Kagami pressed into him. And he felt that pleasure that he’d been so long without._

He leaned against the banister.

_He felt the hard line of Kagami’s body as they connected._

He looked up. I don’t feel real.

_Don’t leave. I promise. Together._

He took off his jacket and placed his hands on the rail. He was alone, so alone.

_Together._

He looked up at the sky. I just need to hold on. I can be strong, I’m still me. Just me. No one else. He took a deep breath before going back inside.

 _He_ felt _everything_ and _nothing._

***

Kagami was lying awake staring down at Kise in his arms. He was so small. Stuck in a teenager’s body. How were they going to fix him? Kise had fallen asleep right after they’d done it and he was clinging onto Kagami now, looking so fragile.

His mind wandered to the guy who had been living with him for the past few months. He didn’t know why but a part of him… no how could he even think that? Here was Kise, _his_ Kise and he was thinking about someone else. But, this Kise hadn’t acted like his Kise. The other guy hadn’t either. He felt a wave of grief all of a sudden. What had happened to Kise while he’d been away to make him act so different?

Kagami didn’t know what to think; he didn’t know how to feel.

***

It had been a month. A whole month and they’d learned nothing. They didn’t know what to do with Kise, and they didn’t know how to get the Kises back into their right bodies.

Kise was getting more and more frustrated, but the more upset he got the less he let it show. It was like he was growing numb. Other Kise had taken a different tact. He’d lash out at people and be, well there was no other word fort it, immature. Kise couldn’t understand why though. Wasn’t this Kise supposed to be older than him? Wiser and all that?

There was something else that was bothering him though. Sometimes he’d feel inexplicably sad or happy. It had nothing to do with where he was or what he was doing. It almost felt like he was being possessed.

He found himself avoiding Kise and Kagami. He hated seeing them together. He knew he was jealous, but he wasn’t going to let himself do anything stupid. He had no right to. It felt like he had no right to do anything anymore.

And what made it all even worse was that Kagami would sometimes give Kise these _looks_ like he wanted to be friends.

And Other Kise would see it and that would just make him get pissier.

Finally the tension broke one Saturday when Kagami had been stealing more furtive glances then either Kise was comfortable with.

“Kise, I need to talk to you,” other Kise said shaking with rage. Kagami looked like he might interfere, dear god get it together, Kise thought, he was so done with their shit. He hadn’t made a move on Kagami, and yet he still felt like he was about to be torn apart for it.

“Yeah, ok, let’s go talk somewhere private,” Kise said.

Other Kise nodded and they went into an empty room at the end of the hall.

“Taiga says that you didn’t go to any of his games.”

What?

“I didn’t.”

“And you never supported him while I was gone either,” Kise said as if he was trying to prove something.

What the fuck?

“You’re right,” Kise said quietly. He had no idea how to answer, because he had no idea where this was going.

“Why would you do that!” Other Kise screamed.

Kise willed himself to be calm.

“Do what exactly?”

“Let him be so lonely! You must like him too! And now he’s he’s-”

Whatever Kagami was Kise didn’t get to hear, because Other Kise had burst into tears. Kise went over and wrapped him in a hug. Shit why did he have to be so pathetic. It made Kise’s heart ache. He didn’t want Other Kise to be in pain, no matter how irritating he could be.

“He’s been growing distant, and he- he looks at you.”

Kise held his breath.

“Look, the reason I didn’t do any of the things that you said, is because I didn’t want to hurt you. I wasn’t with Kagami in my memories. And I knew that this Kagami was yours, not mine. And I- I wanted to bring you back,” Kise said running a hand through Other Kise’s hair.

“You don’t even _know_ me though,” Other Kise said quietly.

Kise felt a stab of guilt. He paused in his stroking of Other Kise’s hair. Wait a minute. He did know Kise though…. He had feelings that weren’t his, and he felt incomplete. His heart started beating faster as he thought it through, and he didn’t have a world to return to….

He felt as everything fell into place. His face draining of color. There was no other explanation.

“Ki-chan,” he said.

Other Kise looked up at him, startled.

“I do know you.”

“What do you mean? You’re not from here.”

Kise let go of Other Kise and stood in front of him. And he really looked at him for the first time.

This Kise was so different from him. This Kise let everything out: anger, fear, hurt, joy, and he… he didn’t do any of those things.

“Heart and mind,” he whispered.

“What?” Other Kise said, sniffling and looking confused.

“Do you trust me?”

Other Kise looked hesitant. “You didn’t steal Kagami from me… even though you wanted to…”

Kise nodded.

Other Kise seemed to be doing some thinking himself.

“Ok,” he said looking back.

There was a knock at the door. “We have to hurry,” Kise said, and he took a deep breath and then he hugged other Kise. He thought about how they were the same person, how they finally had talked about their situation, how they had admitted to each other how they felt. Other Kise froze before his breath hitched.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh,” and then his arms wrapped around Kise too.

Kise heard the crackle of electricity as the lightning struck.

He could hear the door fly open and Midorima’s shocked yell followed by Kagami’s anguished cry.

But Kise finally understood. He and Other Kise were the same person. Just split in half.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is going to explain more about how Kise figured it out and what the hell Akashi's been up to :)   
> When I first wrote this chapter I had some triggers, but I decided that I wanted to take them out, so now we have the final product - I hope that it was ok :/


	8. the white room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter before the epilogue.

His eyes fluttered open. He was in the white room again and he remembered, as if he’d seen everything in the last few months through two sets of eyes. He remembered the isolation and terror of being stuck with no one. He remembered waking up and not remembering who he was. He remembered meeting Kagami for the first time – twice.

He was Kise again, complete and whole. And there sitting behind the desk was Akashi.

One gold eye, one red eye.

“Ryouta.”

“Seijurou.”

Akashi chuckled.

“Feeling a little overconfident?”

“Why’d you do it?”

Akashi considered him.

“You were just a convenient choice.”

Kise blinked at him, completely confused.

“Convenient?”

“Well you’ve always been at war with yourself. And I needed a test subject. You were the logical choice. Really splitting you in half wasn’t even that difficult. Childs play.”

Kise didn’t- he couldn’t understand what Akashi was saying.

“You did this as an experiment?!” he was shaking in anger. “What just to fuck around?”

Akashi gave him a withering look, as if he’d never seen someone so dumb.

“I had a reason, of course.”

Kise waited.

“Well I have to eliminate you anyway so I guess I can tell you.”

Kise blanched.

“I’ve been slowly waking up. I realized that I needed to separate from that idiot.”

Kise was still reeling from the proclamation that Akashi was going to kill him, but he tried to focus, that was his only chance to make it out alive. _That idiot_ he must mean Red Akashi. “But of course I wanted to make sure that I could do it before I tried.”

Oh shit. So he was going to try and get two bodies.

“What are you going to do when you separate?”

Akashi looked at him questioningly.

“I’m going to take Tetsu.”

Oh no… no, no.

“You can’t just take him! He’s not a toy, he’s a person.”

Akashi was in front of him before he realized it.

“He left me! HE LEFT ME.”

Kise stopped in his tracks.

“What does Red Akashi think,” he said. Knowing that it was a risk to ask.

Gold Akashi stepped back slightly as if coming out of a fog. “He doesn’t understand.”

Kise stood there still shaking. Akashi couldn’t have Kuroko. Gold Akashi had gone away because Kuroko demanded it of him. Kise remembered being shut in that other world, separated from Kagami. The fear that he’d never get back. He had a sudden horrible thought.

“Akashi, have you been stuck in here all this time?”

Akashi stepped back, like an angry dog. “What do you mean?”

“I mean have you been stuck in this white room waiting while Red Akashi and Kuroko were together?” Waiting for Kuroko to choose him….

Akashi’s gaze flicked to Kise’s. “You- you don’t know anything.”

Be brave. He stepped towards Akashi.

“I do know, when you split me in half, half of me was stuck in a world with no people.”

“What?” Akashi said.

“I kept hoping that Kagami would come for me, but he never showed. I thought that he might have abandoned me. I guess that was my ‘white room.’”

“I don’t want to hear this!” he yelled.

Kise didn’t stop. “You wanted him to acknowledge you. You and Red Akashi. Both of you, all of you felt like you didn’t deserve Kuroko, because he couldn’t accept you for who you are: this Akashi and Red Akashi.”

It made sense. Gold Akashi was hurt because he felt rejected. And Red Akashi must feel like he would never be good enough, because Kuroko wouldn’t acknowledge a part of him. An important part of him!

Akashi stared at him. Kise didn’t breathe. Had he gotten it wrong? He felt his heart beating faster than it had ever beaten before.

“I waited here for so long,” Gold Akashi said quietly. “I waited for Tetsu to decide that actually, he did want me too, but he never changed his mind.”

And then Akashi’s face fell, a golden tear falling from his eye, which slowly turned red. And then it was Red Akashi standing there.

“Kise….”

Kise gave a soft smile.

“Kise what have I done? I’m so sorry.”

Kise let out a shaky breath, relief flooding his body.

“I know that you can’t forgive me, but I’m truly sorry.”

“Akashi I do forgive you.”

“How can you say that,” he said as he started laughing hysterically. “I’ve been so angry for so long, I let that monster out, he was going to- to kill you and take Kuroko.” Akashi held his hands out palms in front of his face and he stared at his fingers. “I split you in half for my own, own ends.” His eyes shot up to look at Kise.

“Akashi, maybe the problem is that you have too much power that you’ve been keeping in. You never told Kuroko how it felt, how it felt when he told you that he only wanted half of you.”

Akashi’s hands fell to his sides. He looked like a child.

“You’re not complete without Kuroko and you’re not complete without Gold Akashi, no wonder you were so unhappy.”

“They’ll never forgive me,” he said quietly. “Kuroko won’t forgive me for what I’ve done, and I can’t forgive myself for locking half of me away.”

“I think everyone that you just mentioned is stronger than you think. I mean I forgave you,” Kise said quietly. “Let me help you Akashi.”

Akashi looked hesitant. But Kise stepped forward. “Please, we can talk to Kuroko, I can help both you and Gold Akashi. You don’t have to be two people anymore.”

“Kise, how can you say that, I’m not trying to be mean, but before you split you were….”

“Selfish and self-loathing? Yeah, maybe being split in two has made me see how important it is to accept both parts of me. Akashi maybe I’m sick for thinking it, but I feel a lot better now, like having my two halves be able to talk to each other, has made it so that I can finally feel comfortable with myself.”

Akashi nodded. “Ok, so what do we do?”

Kise hesitated. “I think that you should both come?”

“Both?”

“Well if you’re here, I’m guessing that Gold Akashi is uh ‘downstairs?’ So when we go back can he also stay there too?”

Akashi nodded, “yeah we don’t actually have to switch places, we just you know… do.”

“Ok, let’s all go back to the warehouse together.”

“The warehouse?”

“Headquarters.”

***

He woke up on a white gurney. He looked up, it was the warehouse. He could hear crying and shouting. He slowly shifted up, his whole body ached. He looked down to see Akashi lying down on the floor.

“Akashi, Akashi wake up.”

Akashi stirred.

“Ryouta?”

But then Midorima was there. “Kise what happened? Where’s Ki-chan?”

Kagami was standing there too looking angrier than Kise had ever seen him.

“Where is he? What did you do!” he said as he started shaking. “And why is he here?” He said looking at Akashi in horror and not know what to do with his limbs.

Aomine grabbed Kagami around the waist to hold him back. Akashi had stepped protectively in front of Kise.

“Akashi?” Kise saw Kuroko staring in confusion too.

“Can we please go to the conference room,” Kise said. He felt so tired, but they had to do this now. Before anything got any worse.

“No you need to explain.” Kagami said in near hysterics.

“Taiga, it’s me, I’ll explain, just please not like this.”

Kagami stared.

“Come on,” Aomine said as he manhandled Kagami towards the conference room.

“Akashi,” Kuroko said again as he went over to him, a small smile on his face.

“Tetsu please wait also,” he said looking uncomfortable. Kise didn’t miss the slight hurt that passed through Kuroko’s eyes.

Kise gave Akashi a reassuring nod.

They all sat in the conference room. Akashi was looking more unhappy than Kise had ever seen him in his life, both his lives actually.

“I’ll go first ok?” He said to Akashi who nodded. “Is he…?” he whispered quietly.

“I can feel him coming.”

“Right.” Kise looked up. He couldn’t look at Kagami so he looked at Midorima, Aomine, and Kuroko instead. “So as it so happens, both Kises were the real Kise. I’d been split in half, and certain personality traits came out in each Kise. But now I have two sets of memories.” He paused before turning towards Kagami, “I remember when I met you and Aomine at the modeling agency, I remember always making sure that I went to your first game of the season, and I remember you always telling me that I didn’t have to.”

Kagami seemed to be in a daze, barely nodding along.

“But I also remember this other world, that I guess doesn’t actually exist, and I- I remember my parents from there,” he bit his lip, willing himself not to think about it right now. “So that’s how it is, I remember everything from before and after the lightning through two sets of eyes.”

Everyone was staring in stony silence.

“Well I’m convinced,” Aomine finally said. Momoi was looking between Kise and Akashi with her eyes slightly narrowed, not as if she was skeptical, but as if she was trying to figure out what had gone unsaid.

“How did you figure it out?” Midorima finally said.

Kise felt a wry smile tug at his lips.

“Actually half of me realized when I was fighting with myself earlier today. The things was, I, ‘we?’ I don’t know,” he huffed out a laugh. “Yeah sometimes we’d feel emotions that had nothing to do with what was happening in that moment.”

“So you were feeling the other Kise’s emotions,” Momoi said nodding.

“Right, and then when we were arguing something just kind of clicked. I’d thought that it didn’t make sense for me to not have a world. And we’d been drawn to each other when we used that machine. Like I was able to find myself at the apartment, even though no one told me where to look, I just felt it in my gut. We’d both been feeling so, incomplete, I guess. Really it was just that no other explanation made sense. So I just went up to myself, and the other half of me felt it too, so I let myself try to be whole again.”

Midorima and Momoi were nodding. Kuroko was looking blank as ever, and Akashi seemed to realize that he was almost up to bat.

“So, you’re back?” Kagami finally said quietly, carefully, as if he didn’t want to get his hopes up.

“Yes,” Kise said, his breath hitched. He finally could love this man. He didn’t feel jealous of the possibility that he liked another Kise, and he didn’t feel like he couldn’t have him because Kagami wasn’t his. Finally he was allowed to- his brain stopped. They needed to figure out Akashi first. He let out a deep breath.

“Akashi has a lot to explain too,” he said as he finally looked away from Kagami.

“I-” Akashi stopped and looked at Kise as if asking for help. Well that was new and different. But Kise guessed that nothing mattered as much as this moment.

“Um, I think that this might be hard for everyone who knows Akashi to hear, but please just listen, it’s important.”

Midorima nodded. Kuroko looked blank.

“I want to apologize first. I was responsible for what happened to Kise, and yes I did it on purpose.”

Kise wanted to reassure him again that it was ok, but he bit his lip to keep from interrupting.

“For those of you who don’t know, I was trying to conduct an experiment. I wanted to know if it was possible to split someone in half. Kise,” He gave Kise a questioning look.

Kise nodded, he didn’t know what he was agreeing to, but he didn’t mind anything that Akashi could say.

“I picked Kise, because he’s come to me before to ask for advice. He often felt jealous and frustrated and was angry with himself for those feelings. I thought that he would be easy to split in two.”

Midorima looked stony, but Aomine and Kagami had almost identical angry looks on their faces, Kise would find it amusing if he weren’t so nervous.

“And we’ve talked about it and I’ve apologized.” Kise nodded at him.

“Kuroko, there’s something that I haven’t been honest with you about. When you told me that you’d leave me if I let Gold Akashi out, I- I felt like you were telling me that half of me wasn’t good enough. I was so worried that you would leave if I messed up, so I locked him away. And when I felt him resurfacing I feigned ignorance, because I didn’t know what to do. I’ve been trying to find a way to get rid of him. So when he wanted to get his own body I didn’t protest, I thought I’d be free from him, but then he was trying to take you.” Akashi stopped and exhaled slowly. “The truth is, I can’t keep him out of me anymore. I don’t _want_ to keep him out of me. I know he’s hurt people, but he’s part of who I am. And isolating him is what’s made him how he is. I can’t do that to him anymore. And I can’t deny his importance in who I am either. He’s what makes me a winner. And that comes with a price, I just- I never thought that that price would be you. And I didn’t want you to only want half of me. I spend so much time trying to keep him in line, but he just gets angrier and angrier.”

Kuroko was staring at him. And Kise could see that his eyes were a little wet.

“I’ve been so angry for so long,” Akashi said looking down. “Gold Akashi finally decided that the only thing to do was to cut us in half, which is why he split Kise, to check if it was possible. But,” and he looked up, his face set. “I don’t want to keep him out anymore, because without him I’m just… unhinged. I’m always worried that I’ll lose you, and finally I realize that I don’t really have you, because you don’t want half of me, and this...” he gestured at himself. “This isn’t me, this is just façade, it’s a shadow.”

Kuroko was full on crying now, and Kise had no idea how Akashi had the willpower to stay seated and not go over to him. But he seemed to be holding himself back.

“This isn’t your fault Kuroko, it’s my fault, but I can’t be with you like this, I can’t be with _anyone_ when I’m denying half of my existence. It’s not fair to me.”

“I agree.” Everyone turned, startled by the man who they hadn’t seen enter. Gold Akashi was leaning by the door, and looking tense, but controlled.

Red Akashi bolted up. “I’m sorry,” he said as he made an aborted movement towards Gold Akashi.

Gold Akashi sighed. He actually _sighed._ This was so bizarre. Kise finally appreciated how weird it must have been for everyone to see him and a doppelgänger.

“No, I’m sorry. I’m fucking crazy, that’s why we’re so messed up.”

Red Akashi hesitated before going over to him and standing directly in front of him.

“Are you scared of me?” Gold Akashi whispered.

Red Akashi stood there as if deciding. “Yes, but I trust you.”

Gold Akashi let out a derisive laugh. “I say that I’m going to kill one of your best friends, after splitting him in half, and I threaten to take away your boyfriend, but still you trust me?”

“I have no choice, if I can’t trust myself then who can I trust?”

Gold Akashi blinked in surprise. “Don’t you resent me for ruining your life?”

Red Akashi paused but then ever so carefully he said, “no, you complete me.”

How Akashi could say that without being embarrassed was a mystery to Kise. Wow, he had been so much less sappy with himself. Actually his issues were seemingly miniscule in comparison to this wildness.

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do. I accept you.”

“No matter what?”

Gold Akashi’s eyes flicked over to Kuroko. Kuroko whose eyes were as big as saucers.

Red Akashi looked over sadly. “No matter what.”

And then Gold Akashi grabbed Red Akashi’s neck and kissed him right on the mouth.

Kise bolted up horrified. But then there was a flash of bright light. And the lightning struck all around the pair of them. Kise squinted as he saw the Akashi’s glow and dust fly. When the lightning stopped only one Akashi was standing there looking down at his hands, which were shaking. No one moved.

“Akashi?” Kuroko asked quietly. He had gotten up and was moving towards him.

Akashi looked up. Kise stared in disbelief. His eyes were red with gold specks.

“Kuroko,” he said standing straight.

Kuroko stared at him before reaching out a tentative hand and putting it on his shoulder.

Akashi looked between his eyes, unsure, yet hoping.

“I’m sorry that we can’t be together,” Akashi finally said. “But I had to put myself first.”

“Can’t we?”

Akashi blinked, “but I thought, you said...”

“I didn’t realize. You’ve always put me first, both parts of you. I was wrong, so let’s try.”

Akashi nodded as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Tetsu I love you.”

“Show me the man that you want to be,” Kuroko said as he leaned in to kiss him.

Aomine was looking up at the ceiling as if bored. Midorima seemed frustrated, as if this whole thing could have been avoided. And Momoi was smiling quietly and stroking Aomine’s forearm in slow circles. But Kise was busy feeling amused at the look of horror on Kagami’s face as he stared transfixed at Kuroko and Akashi.

Eventually Kuroko and Akashi stepped away from each other.

“I think we should head back to Kyoto,” Akashi said holding Kuroko’s hand. “Everything’s been sorted now so…. I want to thank you all for helping us.”

“Wait,” Kise said quickly. “I think that we should have dinner.”

“It’s only 2:30,” Midorima said.

“No I mean later, like next weekend, all of us together.”

They stared at him. Akashi nodded. “Ok.”

Kise felt relieved. Now that they weren’t trying to solve other-worldly mysteries together they could just be… well friends.

“Alright,” Midorima said.

They all got up and headed out. Kise and Akashi had a quiet thank-you fest, before Kuroko thanked Kise as well and then Kuroko and Akashi headed out.

Kise watched them go. I hope that it works out, he thought. It wouldn’t be easy. Kuroko would be getting to know a whole new Akashi. They must know the risk in this decision. He sighed and turned to the others.

“Thank you all for helping me.”

“You’re welcome,” Momoi said happily. “Dai-chan and I had fun.” Aomine huffed.

“I supposed you’re not too bad after all pretty boy,” Aomine said looking off at the sky. Momoi giggled. “That’s a declaration of friendship. We’ll see you at dinner next week,” she said as she dragged Aomine to the car. He was fuming at her.

“So,” Midoirma said. “Everything has been finished.”

Kise nodded.

“I guess we’ll be seeing less of each other. It was a pleasure working with you,” he said holding out a hand. Kise took it and pulled him into a hug. Midorima was stiff, but there was time for improvement Kise thought.

“Midorimacchi don’t be so cold,” he said as he backed up. “I’ll stop by all the time, don’t you worry.” Midorima looked annoyed, but pleased all the same. “Alright, you ready to go Taiga?” he said turning to his boyfriend. _His_ boyfriend.

Kagami nodded and they went over to their car.

***

The drive was quiet. Kise was humming quietly and Kagami just focused on the road. When they finally got up to the apartment Kagami wasn’t sure shat to do. He was looking everywhere but at his boyfriend.

“Taiga,” Kise said.

His eyes snapped to Kise’s. Kise who was smiling fondly at him. Kagami felt his chest clench. He’d spent the last month feeling so confused. Confused because he liked both Kise’s, but also didn’t like both Kise’s because neither of them were quite the man that he’d fallen in love with.

And now Kise was coming towards him and taking his hands. Kagami followed as Kise walked backwards into the living room, not letting go. Kagami felt the couch behind him and he sat down. Kise sat on his lap and put his hands on his shoulders.

“Taiga, I’m so sorry for everything.”

Kagami didn’t know what to say.

“I know that I shouldn’t be happy about what happened, but I think that things are going to be different now.”

Yeah, that was true.

“I know that you’ve been hurting. I can’t even imagine how confusing this must’ve been for you. But before I was split in two, I think that I was already hurting you.”

What? How could he be worrying about the past after all that had happened?

“Just, I was really selfish. I was so worried about what would happen if we came out publically, and I was self-conscious too, that’s why I didn’t want you to keep my movies. But now, after everything, I don’t care about those things anymore.”

Kise was staring at him so earnestly, as if he was willing him to understand.

“Ryouta, you don’t have to change anything.”

Kise shook his head. “I know, we’re not like Kuroko and Akashi, you’ve always supported me, and loved every part of me, even when I was childish. But I want to be a better man now. I don’t want my insecurities to get in the way anymore.”

Kagami’s chest clenched.

“You’re really back,” he said.

Kise nodded biting his lip. Kagami couldn’t help the tears, he was just so relieved.

“I felt like I was wrong for liking both of you.”

“Don’t cry, you’re going to make me cry,” Kise said as he started tearing up and laughing.

“I just don’t want to feel guilty anymore,” Kagami said.

“No you did nothing wrong,” Kise said as his hands came up to his face. “What’d I do to deserve someone as good as you?”

Kagami couldn’t believe it. That was definitely his line. His hands came up to Kise’s sides and he gave him a light squeeze. He opened his mouth to tell him that he, Kagami, was the lucky one, not the other way around. But Kise caught his mouth.

His lips were so soft and careful. It was like he was afraid that he’d break Kagami or that they’d break each other. Kagami wrapped his arms around him pulling him closer. And finally they were just leaning against each other, not moving, just breathing. His chest felt so tight, he squeezed Kise closer.

Kise let out a laugh. “Do you want to lie down?” he said.

Kagami nodded against him. Kise’s hand had found it’s way into his hair.

“Come on,” Kise said. Kagami groaned slightly as Kise tried to stand up. Kise chuckled. “Come on Kagamicchi, let’s go to bed.”

Kagami reluctantly let him move. “I thought we had moved past the Kagamicchi crap.”

“Hmm it’s kind of cute though isn’t it?” Kise said winking at Kagami and strutting towards the bedroom. What a tease.

Kagami followed. Kise was standing by the bed and looking at him.

“What?”

Kise shook his head before slowly unbuttoning his top button. “I want you.”

Kagami gulped. Holy shit. His eyes followed as Kise’s shirt slowly came undone.

“You only had sex with half of me, while the rest of me was trying not to think about you.” Kise’s shirt fluttered to the floor. He was doing it on purpose. Kagami knew, but he still couldn’t help but feel like his boyfriend was way too sexy for him.

Kise started on his belt. “But now you can have all of me.” He slipped the belt off and undid his jeans. “Taiga,” he moaned. What a fucking minx. But he couldn’t help it, he didn’t care that his boyfriend was seducing him, because he was so turned on already. He ran forward and pulled Kise’s pants down before pushing him onto the bed. Kise slid back so that he was propped up on the pillows, eyes half-lidded as he stared up at him. Kagami settled on top of him, their chests pressed together and his hip pressing down ever so lightly onto Kise’s hardening cock. Kise groaned and Kagami silenced him as he closed his mouth over Kise’s, his tongue flicking into that gorgeous mouth. Kise moaned and Kagami pressed his hips down even more.

Kise was trying to pull off Kagami’s shirt, and he quickly leaned back to get rid of his clothes. He was back on the bed in his boxers, his arms caging Kise in as he pressed closer.

“Taiga, I don’t think I’ll last very long.”

“That’s good isn’t it? I want to make you feel good Ryouta.” Kise let out a groan half exasperated, half turned on.

“Kise, I want to…” he looked down between them. Kise was flushed as he nodded. Kagami pulled his boxers down.

“I’ll prepare you,” he said as he brushed some of the hair out of Kise’s face. Kise smiled up at him, he looked exhausted. Kagami stopped.

“We don’t have to do this now,” Kagami said as he lightly touched Kise’s face. Kise reached up to hold Kagami’s hand in place.

“Yeah but let’s do it anyway,” he said. He looked like a content kitten all relaxed.

“Ok,” Kagami said as he grabbed the bottle of lube out of the nightstand. He carefully pressed the tip of his finger into Kise. The blonde sighed, his eyes slipping shut. God he was so beautiful. Kagami took his time, and as Kise slowly opened up, Kagami felt his heart beat faster.

“Ok, are you ready?”

Kise’s eyes fluttered open and he nodded before sitting up. “I’ll be on top,” he said as he lazily pulled Kagami over to where Kise had been lying before.

He’d gone from seductive to calm so quickly. Kagami let himself be led down and Kise carefully climbed on top of him. Kise lined him up and then slowly sank down, his eyes closing again as if it was the first time all over again.

“Taiga,” he sighed, as he pulled up again.

Kagami grabbed Kise’s hand and met his hips as he sank back down again.

It was slow and it was perfect, Kise eventually opening his eyes again and looking down at Kagami.

Kagami felt his heart expand and before he could stop himself he was jerking up into Kise. Kise was so surprised by the sudden movement that he came too, his cum splattering all over Kagami’s chest.

Kise was shaking as he carefully helped Kagami slide out of him.

Kagami stared as Kise curled up next to him, and started kissing him languidly.

He was asleep before he knew it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you have it. The next chapter is really just a loose ends tier-upper. And some explanation of random stuff that happened in the fic :)  
> I hope that you've all enjoyed it thus far :D  
> Also I know that it got superrrr campy at the end, but I wanted a different solution for Akashi, one where Gold Akashi isn't demonized, but just uhhhh different lol


	9. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue fluff :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end loveys.  
> I hope that this settles everything :)

_*He’s ten years old and his parents are taking him to his first modeling audition._

_“Ne, kaasan why aren’t ne-chan and ani coming too.”_

_“Your sisters didn’t like modeling when they tried it.”_

_Kise frowned.*_

_*He’s passed his audition and has received a letter telling his parents that they’ll use him in their clothing ad. *_

_*He’s at Teikou and he’s just walked by the shogi club afterschool. He sees a boy with violently red hair holding court. Kise doesn’t know why he does it, but he wants to play against this terrifying creature. He loses, badly. So he tries again. And again. And again. He and Akashi end up eating lunch together every day.*_

_*He’s 16 and Kasamatsu’s just come to his classroom to drag him to the basketball court without preamble._

_“Sempai, whyyyy?” Kise squeals wondering what this third year could possibly want with him._

_He sees the flurry of activity as they enter the gym and turns just in time to catch the ball that Kasamatsu chucks at him._

_“Throw.”_

_Kise rolls his eyes, but shoots a basket anyway. He’s never played basketball, but it doesn’t take long for him to get the hang of it and then to surpass all of the other players._

_He’s just lost his first match against Touou, he’s never met anyone like Aomine and he wants more than anything to beat him.*_

_*He’s just graduated from high school and his agent tells him that he’s been offered a job in France.*_

_*Kise’s just gone over to Akashi’s penthouse to celebrate his new job. He sees a photo of Akashi and a boy with light blue hair. They seem extremely close.*_

_*Kise’s running into the hospital, skidding as he gasps out to a nurse that he’s Kise Ryouta. He stays up all night, hands shaking, Kasamatsu and Sakurai keeping him company and bringing him food._

_When the doctor finally comes out to tell him that his whole family had died in a car accident, Kise feels a pain that makes him think that he’s the one who’s dying, and god he wishes that he were dying.*_

_*He’s flying to France. His family has just died and he thinks that going away for a while will be really good for him, he just wants to forget this pain. He spends the next year traveling all over the world for modeling. When he comes back to Japan Kasamatsu tells him that Aomine’s at Kasamatsu’s college – the star of the basketball team. Kise feels an ache for the game, but knows that he’s an ace among aces in modeling now, not basketball.*_

_*He’s just finished a shoot when his manager tells him that he’s going to see if he can get autographs from the professional basketball players in the studio over.   Kise asks who they are. Its Aomine and a guy he’s never heard of._

_“Apparently Kagami grew up in America, he’s taken the basketball world by storm.”_

_Kise rushes over to the other studio only to find the most awkward shoot taking place. He’d been filled with nervous excitement only moments before, but now he’s just cracking up. Fortunately the staff recognizes him and so he isn’t kicked out. He sees Aomine and then his eyes travel over to the other guy._

_“Aominecchi, long time no see,” Kise says narrowing his eyes._

_“Hah! It’s the pretty boy.”_

_“So mean!” Kise says as he puffs out his cheeks before crossing over to the other man._

_“And you must be the one they call Tiger,” he says as he holds out his hand._

_The man takes it looking shy and blushing slightly, and all of a sudden Kise feels an extreme attraction welling up inside him. Damn this guy was good looking, but something about that face made Kise want to eat him alive._

_“Kise Ryouta, resident fashion model. Maybe I can help you both loosen up.”_

_Kagami’s face turns red as Kise internally cackles._

_“Oi Kise, don’t break him,” Aomine says before tackling Kise. Pretty soon the three are rough housing and before long Kise is teasing them from behind the camera until they relax._

_After the shoot Kise slips his number into Kagami’s bag.*_

_*He’s waiting at the airport with Kagami._

_“Taiga!” a tall blond shrieks as she throws herself into Kagami’s arms and tries to kiss him on the lips. The people around them back away looking uncomfortable and Kise stares dumbfounded. But then the girl is introducing herself and before he can do anything about it she lays a wet one on his mouth._

_“Oi Alex get off him.”_

_“Taiga are you jealous?! Oh but he is gorgeous. Taiga tells me that you’re a model, I can see why he’s so gaga for you now.” Kise smirks at his boyfriend, he likes this woman.*_

_*Kise’s just enrolled in college part time and Kagami has come over to celebrate._

_“Ryouta I’ve been thinking, your schedule is really packed yeah? And your school’s really far away from your apartment, so maybe it-”_

_Kise watches as Kagami fumbles through what has to be the most roundabout way of asking someone to move in with you. Kise tries not to laugh, he really does, but finally he can’t take it anymore. Kagami looks mortified, but Kise quickly tells him that he should just stop talking, because Kise gets it._

_“Taiga I want to move in with you. But ne, it sounds like you don’t really want me to,” he pouts. “All of your reasons were practical,” he whines._

_Kagami mutters that he didn’t want to get his hopes up and Kise jumps him, accidently smacking their heads together in his haste to kiss his boyfriend.*_

_*It’s Kise’s 22 nd birthday and Kagami’s taking him to the new club near their apartment. He’s never been and he coerces Kagami into dancing with him. He has to place Kagami’s hands on his own shoulders. He leans in close, his fingers lightly trailing up Kagami’s back._

_“Let me show you,” he breathes into Kagami’s ear. Kagami jerks back in shock, and although Kise can’t hear him over the music the rapid rising and falling of his chest it’s enough to let Kise know that he’s turned on. Kise feels a wave of heat pass over him and he’s dragging Kagami outside._

_He presses him up against the wall in the back alley._

_“Ryouta anyone could walk by…”_

_“Let me blow you,” Kise says, his voice sultry._

_Kagami let’s out a mangled groan, his hands on Kise’s chest half pushing half pulling._

_“Fuck, Ryouta, we have rules, we’re way too famous for this. Home, bed, now.”_

_And Kise can’t help, but laugh out his agreement.*_

_*He’s on the beach with Kagami after Kasamatsu and Sakurai’s wedding. They’re just sitting next to each other and watching the sunset, and Kise thinks to himself that this is what he wants his life to look like. He wants to be with his friends that are as close as family and he wants to be with Kagami and build his own family.*_

_*He’s at a ring store with Akashi. He’s making suggestions as Akashi gets more and more agitated._

_“I want it to be something he’ll love,” Akashi says. And Kise can’t help think that this is a good chance for him to look around too. Akashi decided to do more thinking and he doesn’t get anything. Kise starts to think about how to ask Kagami.*_

***

They end up having dinner together every other week. Kasamatsu and Sakurai come too.

Kise also convinces Kagami that he’s found his brothers future husband.

“I don’t even think that Tatsuya’s gay,” Kagami says.

“He will be for this guy.”

They end up at Murasakibara’s café with Tatsuya.

Kagami seems mortified, but the two get along swimmingly.

***

Kise was visiting Akashi in his office.

“I have to say this place still gives me the creeps after the lightning,” Kise said as he shivered.

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“How are things going with Kuroko?” Kise had been worrying about it. There was a very real possibility that it wouldn’t go well.

Akashi brought over some tea and sat down.

“It’s not been easy. I think he’s scared of me sometimes,” he sighed out. “But we’re making it work. I don’t feel guilty and I don’t worry.”

Kise nodded as he stared down at his tea.

“Akashi, did you ever end up buying rings.”

Akashi sucked in a breath. “I made some myself.”

Kise looked up as Akashi went over to his bookshelf and pulled out a thin volume. It was one of those fake books that’s actually a box.

He opened it to show Kise.

Two rings, one light blue, and one red were sitting there.

“They’re beautiful,” he said.

“And they’re wrong,” Akashi said sounding upset.

Kise’s head jerked up as he looked into Akashi’s red eyes, the flecks of gold jumping out at him. Oh….

“Akashi you can fix it.”

Akashi closed the box. “At this point I’m not even sure if it will matter. Ryouta, I love Tetsu, but I need to give him time, time to decide if I’m enough for him now. I’m not the same as I was before.”

Kise nodded.

“I’m sorry.”

Akashi waved him off. “Honestly I haven’t felt strong like this before. It makes it easier for me to handle this. I know who I am now. And I’ve accepted that. And now I’m waiting to see if he can accept it too.”

His eyes were firm. Kise thought that he understood.

“Yeah, wait it out.”

Akashi nodded.

***

Kise somehow wrangled them all into playing basketball together one Saturday.

“Midorimacchi just throw the damn ball! Why can’t you do this? Where’s your three point shot?”

“Kise, as I keep trying to tell you,” Midorima gritted out, “I’ve never played basketball.” Midorima was seething, so close to pegging Kise with the ball.

“Ugh this is pointless!” Kise said as he finally flopped down on the court in frustration.

He saw Akashi loom over him.

“Kise-kun you seem to be confusing dreams with reality,” he said as his eyes betrayed his amusement.

“Just you wait Akashicchi! Next we’re going to play shogi and I’m going to kick your ass this time.”

Akashi just shook his head again before reaching his hand out to pull him up.

“Never going to happen.” He turned back to the court. “Your boyfriend seems to be getting into the spirit of things.”

Kagami and Aomine were now taking up the whole court in an epic game of one-on-one.

“Fuck, he’s going to leave me,” Kise said.

“Akashi-kun,” came a small voice.

“Tetsu,” Akashi said as he went over to wrap an arm around Kuroko’s waist and kiss him on the cheek.

Kise looked over and saw Himuro and Murasakibara sitting on the benches. Himuro was showing him a catalog of sweets. Kise had the feeling that Himuro would be visiting Japan a lot more often from now on.

***

Kagami was glad that Kise was back to being happy and relaxed again. Somehow he seemed even more mature now, and Kagami continued to ask himself how he’d ended up with someone so phenomenal. I mean Kagami knew that he was considered popular, but there was something about Kise that drew people in. He was sexy and put together and made you feel like you were worth a whole lot when he was with you. He also didn’t take shit from anyone.

“Taiga what’re you grinning about?”

“Nothing,” he said as he quickly started the car. He was exhausted from playing against that Ahomine. “Hey Kise, why is it again that I have to spend my free time with that Aho? Seeing him in official matches is bad enough.”

“Taiga how can you say that! Trust me you’ll be great friends. Just like how I knew that Murasakibara was perfect for Himuro.”

“They were together in your other memories?”

“Well, no but that’s just because my other memories cut off in my second year of high school. They would’ve gotten together, trust me.”

Kagami only nodded. It was weird how normal this conversation was for them.

“So were we together?”

Kise looked like he was thinking hard. “No, I’d only met you a couple times, and well. How do I say it. I’ve told you about the GoM. But basically I was just obsessed with winning. And you and Kuroko were busy trying to make you the best in Japan, so well I didn’t date at all.”

“You’d never been kissed?”

“Nope.”

“Wait so after the accident?”

Kise laughed. “Yeah, I guess you got your chance to be my first kiss.”

Kagami knew that it wasn’t Kise’s actual first kiss, but somehow he felt smug all the same.

“Don’t get cocky, Kagamicchi, those memories weren’t even-”

“No they count, they influence how you act now so I’m keeping that first kiss. You can’t take it away from me,” he said quickly.

He could see Kise gaping out of his periphery.

“Who knew that you could be so cute?”

Kagami blushed. Shit.

***

So ok the basketball was a no go, but he had gotten Murasakibara to meet Tatsuya. Now he just needed to-.

“No I don’t understand. This is your job, just do your job.”

“Hey, it’s ok don’t worry, it’ll be fine.”

Kise stopped mid-stride to stare at where Takao was mediating between two other people who were having a row.

Kise looked around. Was this fate?

Well let’s see how much clout I have as an actor.

“Takaocchi!” he called over.

Takao turned around his eyes widening for a fraction of a second.

“Takao who is this, we need to hurry if we’re going to-”

“Sorry it’s an old friend, gotta run.”

“Wait isn’t that?”

But Takao was sprinting over and Kise quickly turned so they could walk away.

“You know my name?”

“It’s complicated, but I’ve met your future lover,” Kise said, no preamble, no bullshit.

“Right, thanks for saving me from the most frustrating colleagues ever, they just fight all the time.”

***

“Midorima Shintaraou this is Takao Kazunari, Takaocchi this is Midorima,” Kise said proudly.

They were all at the warehouse celebrating Kuroko’s birthday.

Akashi was looking between Kise and Midorima.

“So it’s Shin-chan then,” Takao said easily.

“What’s a Shin-chan,” Midorima said as he glared over at Kise. Kise clapped him on the shoulder cackling before going over to Akashi.

“Hmm?”

“In your memories was Murasakibara with Himuro, and this guy with Shintarou?”

“No, well maybe, but they had this weird vibe, like, like….”

“Like soulmates,” Akashi supplied.

Kise turned to him.

“Is that even a thing?”

Akashi ticked his head to the right. “I’m starting to wonder.”

“It is strange isn’t it? I met people there that I hadn’t met here, but they’re real.”

Akashi nodded. “Maybe they are soulmates.”

Kise looked over to where Kuroko was telling Kagami to stop eating so fast. And Aomine was throwing finger food at Kagami.

He wished he had been with Kagami in the other world too.

But he didn’t need the label of ‘soulmates’ to know that he was meant to be with Kagami.

***

“Taiga, there’s something that I want to talk to you about.”

Kagami was lying on the coach with his head in Kise’s lap as Kise stroked his hair.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I want to come out.”

Kagami stopped breathing, sure that this was a dream.

“I know that before I said absolutely no, and no discussion about it, but things are different now. I guess I’m different now?”

Kagami looked up.

“I’m sure,” Kise said. He seemed to have heard Kagami’s question without him having to ask. “My reasons before didn’t really make sense.”

Kagami nodded.

“Ok, so we going to do this?”

Kagami sat up and slowly turned to face Kise.

“I’ve always wanted to, you know that.”

Kise was biting his lip.

“Sorry that it took me so long….”

“Hey, no it’s ok,” he said as he cupped Kise’s cheek. “You just needed time.”

Kise leaned into the touch before leaning forward and brushing his lips lightly against Kagami’s.

“I’ll talk to my agent tomorrow,” Kise said as he smiled up at Kagami.

Wow.

“You’re beautiful.”

Kise started laughing raucously. “What a line Kagamicchi. Trying to get into my virgin pants?”

He could feel his face turning bright red. “Why do you ruin every good moment. Don’t laugh.”

But he just kept going, slumping against Kagami as he shook with glee.

Kagami sighed and patted his back. Honestly what a guy.

“Taiga.” Kagami looked down, surprised by the quiet voice.

Kise looked up, smirking slightly. “I love you.”

Kagami’s breath hitched. “I love you too.”

***

When they came out the inevitable tidal wave of reactions came. Some people were pissed, some people were pleased, but most notably their lives didn’t actually change that much. They still went to their jobs, and then back home, and out with their friends when they had time. The only major difference was that now in interviews they were asked about their relationship.

***

“I want to go out to dinner on Christmas.”

“How trashy is the place? Should I wear my leopard print pants?”

“Maybe something that doesn’t make you look like an animal.”

Kise stretched up smirking. Kagami shuddered, remembering the one time that Kise had worn the leopard print pants. But he was a model so he got away with shit like that no problem.

“Don’t worry Kagamicchi I’ll wear a suit.”

***

Kise was getting ready for dinner on Christmas when a delivery came from Akashi. When he opened it he saw the most exquisite grey suit.

 

Ryouta,

I heard that Kagami’s taking you out tonight. I thought you should wear something extra special.

Merry Christmas.

 

Your friend,

Akashi Seijuurou

 

Kise smiled fondly. Everything had turned out ok hadn’t it?

When they got to the restaurant it was completely empty, a penthouse place with wooden floors, wooden beams, and twinkly lights strung across a big window that overlooked the city.

And there was Kagami waiting for him at a small table in the center. This was beautiful and Kagami looked perfect in a black suit with a red tie that matched his hair. Kise had no qualms about kissing him before they sat down.

The food was amazing and Kise was so happy. So relaxed and glad to be here with Kagami. And this is what he wanted. A life with Kagami, forever, until they were old and their hair was no longer shocking shades of gold and red. And he wanted a family with him.

They had just finished their fifth course and Kise was stuffed but still ready for dessert.

“I talked to Akashi before your accident,” Kagami said quietly.

“What about?” Kise said as he loosened his tie slightly.

“I wanted to ask him for advice about something.”

Kise tried to imagine the two of them together and he couldn’t help but smile. But then Kagami seemed nervous. In fact he’d been nervous all evening.

“I had to ask someone for permission, and I wanted to buy the perfect one.”

Kise couldn’t believe what he was hearing. And then Kagami produced a thin box from under the table.

“But he offered to make them for us instead.”

The usually steady hands were shaking and Kise could barely stay still as Kagami opened the box.

Two rings.

One gold, one red.

“Kise Ryouta, I’ve liked you since I met you, and I’ve loved you since the day that you came over to my apartment wearing those crappy leopard pants. I remember staring at you as you took off your shoes in the entryway and all I could think was that I didn’t care about hiding it anymore. That I wanted you and your weird pants and anything else, and I wanted it all and I wanted it forever.

“There’s no one else Ryouta, no one else that I want to spend my life with. So if you’ll have me, please let me be your family from now on.”

Kise was nodding and crying and couldn’t believe that Kagami had beaten him to it.

“Yes, yes Taiga,” he was shaking as he stood up. And there was Kagami wrapping his arms around his waist and kissing him, the box sitting on the table.

When they finally came up for air Kise clung onto Kagami.

“You already are my family Taiga.”

He felt Kagami squeeze him harder, before letting go.

“I think there are some people who are waiting,” Kagami said grinning, his eyes wet.

And Kise didn’t understand until Kagami went over to a door on the side of the room and opened it.

“He said yes!” Kagami said pumping his fist in the air.

Kise heard the yells of several people, although it sounded more like a pack of animals. And then in they piled. The GoM and their partners, Kasamatsu and Sakurai, Kagami’s parents, and Alex. And Kise was so happy.

He was with his future husband. And he was with his family.

He took a moment to think of his own parents. To tell them in his mind how thankful he was that they’d given him this world and to say how much he wished that they were here too.

And then he let himself not worry, and not think, and just be happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This whole story was inspired by the CW's The Flash, the song "Raging" by Kygo and ft. Kodaline (I listened to it while I wrote so as to get the same feeling for every chapter.)  
> Thank you to  
> TheSenpaiWhoNoticedYou for making me realize that I needed to write a Kagami Kise fic :)


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